Slide
by NWP-RR Writers
Summary: The Nuns With Pens RoundRobin Project - A run in with White will take Max and Alec to the most dangerous and exciting adventure of all, as they travel from Parallel Universe to Parallel Universe, searching their way back home. **Check profile 4 info**
1. The Prologue

**Nuns With Pens'**

**Dark Angel Round Robin Project**

**Slide**

**Prologue**  
**Author**: MeryKey  
**Beta**: CC, aka CandyCentric  
**Rating**: PG13… *shrugs*  
**Disclaimer**: Neither Dark Angel nor Sliders belong to me or any of the Nuns (although I know many of us wish we owned Alec… Mmmh, Alec)  
**Summary**: A run in with White will take Max and Alec to the most dangerous and exciting adventure of all.

**A note before you start reading**: For more information on what is this, please, refer to our profile page. We've got a little FAQ. Also, you may visit the LJ Comm: .com/nwp_slide. Thank you!

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It was a quiet night. Dark clouds lurked over the city with promises of heavy rain. A slight wind welcomed her as she reached the top of the Space Needle, waving her hair away from her mocha-skinned face.

The wind brought a sense of calm, but unfortunately it seemed not to be enough to quell her troubled mind. She had been forced to deal with many situations in her life, many of them at the same time, but this was really getting ridiculous.

She looked down at her fore-arm, where the small black symbols had first appeared. After those first three lines, more had begun appearing all over her body.

White had said something about them, something about the meek inheriting the earth, which made absolutely no sense to her. And what did the meek have to do with her, anyway? She sighed in annoyance, suddenly missing the days of Lydecker and Manticore. It seemed so much easier to run away from them, but the problem was that she couldn't leave this time; she'd tried, and realized there were too many things she would be leaving behind. Too many people she couldn't just call "the past".

Of course, residing at the top of her long list of problems was Logan.

She had almost killed the guy twice because of this virus she carried and as much as she tried to stay away from him, he kept coming back, stronger and more insistent than ever. Then she had even tried lying to him, creating a fake relationship between her and Alec, a lie she was almost sure he wouldn't believe. She'd never seen Alec that way, after all, so she couldn't understand how the great Eyes Only could believe such an obvious lie. However, it didn't matter if he believed her or not, he kept calling, asking how she was with that husky voice that had always intrigued her. Deep down she knew the only reason he asked about Alec every time she met him was to see her reaction. Her face remained blank every time, letting him know she would not open up to him on that particular subject.

Logan had been paging her on a daily basis this past week, but she never called him for she knew that if the reason for his call had anything to do with the runes or the Cult, he would've contacted her through the Terminal City connection.

Alec had scored her a cell phone, an object she had always truly hated and although she didn't know exactly why, she had the slight impression it had something to do with people being able to reach her whenever she wanted to be alone. She had seen Logan once since she had gotten it and she refrained mentioning the existence of the cell phone. So, apparently, Logan resorted to his last resource and dialed Alec's cell phone number.

She had been there with her fellow X5, trying to develop a plan to score some money for Terminal City, something Alec had been quite reluctant to help with until she threatened his most precious piece of anatomy, when his cell phone went off and the name '_Loggie_' had appeared on the screen of the small, silver phone he owned. He answered the call nonchalantly, for he wasn't aware of her lie. Alec had sensed certain tension coming from the older man, and had questioned Max about it a few times, but she had shrugged her shoulders, dismissing it entirely.

Max had been sitting on Alec's couch as Logan told her he might have found a man who could help them with the virus while the blonde X5 went to the kitchen to get them another round of beers. He explained how he had spoken with the scientist, how the man seemed to think he could find a cure, but he would need a sample of the virus in order to do so.

She had stuttered a "no problem" and assured Logan she would be on it tomorrow night.

The only problem was that _tomorrow_, had turned into tonight. And now, she stood on top of the Space Needle, looking to find some peace of mind with little success.

Several, contradictory feelings were swirling inside her, and she hated herself for feeling like this. Of all the thoughts running through her mind, there was one that was louder than the rest: _Is it really worth it?_ The buzzing thoughts immediately died down, leaving her to think on that only statement. Was it really worth it to keep hoping there really was a cure out there? Was it really worth it to dream on a relationship she would never have? Was it worth it to have a relationship with Logan, knowing that even though they wanted to, they just couldn't be together?

They would only hurt each other in the end. Again. She loved him, but apparently it wasn't the kind of love that makes you give a rat's ass about the consequences and the future. She realized there wasn't any kind of passion, at least from her side. And above all, it was too dangerous for him. He had made an enemy out of White because of her; he had made an enemy out Manticore because of her and only her. She was certain EO had many other enemies, but these two were the most dangerous he could ever have.

Her grim thoughts were interrupted by a set of footsteps coming from behind her. She turned around only to find Alec walking towards her. Max rolled her eyes in annoyance.

"What are you doing here?" she asked tiredly.

He stood next to her, casually evaluating the city from above there. "I was bored and figured you would be here, seeing as you weren't at Crash and Cindy has no idea where you are."

"You know I come here to be alone. You should've waited for me at Crash, or your place, or even Logan's place," she argued.

He snorted at that last statement. "Yeah, right. Can you imagine me and Logan waiting for you? I mean, I've nothing against the guy, but he just can't entertain a visit such as myself." His eyes left the city below to look at her pointedly and, with a perfect smirk chiseled in his lips, he said: "He doesn't have a TV."

She held a smile that was struggling to escape her lips.

Alec and his boob-tube was like Cindy and nail polish. Sketchy and weed. Joshua and an easel. The one simply couldn't exist without the other.

She sighed again. There was no other resolution for her to seek up here, especially now that she had a some what annoying company.

"Let's go," she ordered Alec, who silently complied.

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Alec knew the brunette X5 would be up here; she had been silent all day long. Actually, Max had barely talked since speaking to Logan last night. She had, strangely enough, asked for his help in a civil manner, not threatening any part of his engineered body, and he'd agreed, knowing this was very important for both Max and Logan. But, for some reason, this wasn't the Max he expected to find after such news. Then again, he figured this was Max's way of dealing with this type of situations. He remembered how hard it had been for her to give Logan up after their twelve hour window break was over. He was slightly curious as to whether or not they had actually gotten to consummate their relationship and took a moment to ponder over it before shaking his head, remembering it wasn't the time for those thoughts.

Alec had never professed to know everything there was to know about Max, but he did know a little; enough to realize that she was brooding over this. She probably didn't want to get her hopes up, and by restraining her hope, she'd come to the conclusion that the cure wouldn't work and Logan and her would never be together. Her mind went to weird places sometimes; _probably because she's more of a girl than she gives herself credit for._

"You ok?" he asked, breaking the silencing surrounding them as they walked down the steps of the Space Needle.

"Yeah," she simply answered.

They fell on that comfortable silence again, which Alec broke yet again.

"You sure?"

She sighed in annoyance. "Yes, Alec. I'm sure."

Although her tone told him to drop it, he was a curious little tom-cat. Not only that, but her sulkiness was slowly starting to unnerve him; he was starting to sulk himself over a problem that wasn't even his.

As soon as they stepped outside the condemned building, Alec gently took hold of her arm, stopping her stride.

"Listen," he started but immediately paused when the words he was trying to say didn't immediately come to him. Touchy-feely talks were really not his specialty, then again, they weren't Max's either, a fact that would actually help so he wouldn't look like a complete Neanderthal. "I can see you're not ok… I mean, you should be excited or have at least a small, almost invisible, smile on your face, but you don't."

She seemed reluctant to talk about the subject with him; this was probably the kind of thing she would talk with Cindy while they did their nails or whatever women did during girl-time. But he insisted, for some reason.

"I'm not gonna feed you some chick flick speech 'bout how this'll work and that you and Logan are gonna be together for the rest of time, 'cause, well," he smirked, "it isn't really my style." He paused again. He wasn't sure what to say to Max to make her feel better and not compromise his reputation of tough guy at the same time. He thought it through and decided the hell with it. He sighed, rolling his eyes at himself. "If this works, awesome. If not, don't beat yourself up. It's not your fault. You will find the cure some day."

"You sure 'bout that?" she finally asked, challenging him.

"Of course I am," he answered with a mixture of assurance and mischief. She simply rolled her eyes at him. "Oh, come on, Max. You're not good to me if you sulk!"

"What am I? Some kind of puppy to you?" she enquired, as her annoyance increased to anger.

"Nope, you're my buddy," he answered with a smirk, completely unaffected by her change of mood; actually, angry Max was better than sulky Max. "We hang out. I make you laugh, then I make you angry, which amuses me, thus **I** laugh."

Her face twisted up and she scoffed, showing her sheer disgust towards what he had just said, and, as planned, she punched his arm. He had noticed some time ago, that her physical violence towards him had ceased to be as violent as it used to; her punches were now Ordinary-resistant.

He laughed.

"For the record," Max suddenly said, "that was the cheesiest thing you've ever said. Julia-Roberts-chick-flick style."

Alec flinched, bringing a smug smile to Max's face.

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She was feeling miserable and the idiot was laughing at her. What a great buddy! He had started out really good, she had actually started feeling a bit more optimistic about the virus deal, but then he had to ruin it all by being himself!

"Ok, hold on," he suddenly said, backing up towards the building they had just exited.

She wondered what the hell he was thinking. He had ruined her alone time up at the Needle, which meant she would have to wait until, at least, tomorrow night to sort everything out; and now that they were going to start their trip to the Scientist's lab, he goes back to the Space Needle.

She saw him check something by one of the walls next to the entrance. She frowned, now, her curiosity taking the best of her. She walked two steps towards where Alec was, when he stood up again, with a spray paint can on his right hand. The frown grew even more when he started drawing something at the wall.

'_CHEER UP, MAXIE_' was the phrase Alec had inexpertly written in yellow on the wall. She never meant for this to happen, but a smile escaped her lips. Apparently, despite his immaturity, lack of sensibility and annoying personality, Alec could actually be sweet. She quickly wiped the smile off her face when Alec turned around, but he managed to catch a glimpse of it, in spite of her best efforts.

Once he was standing next to her again, she punched him for the second time that night on the shoulder, and, again, it was Ordinary-resistant. Although it didn't hurt, that didn't stop Alec from feigning a painful expression as he held his shoulder.

"What was that for?" he whined.

With a smug look, she answered, "Don't call me Maxie."

She turned around and Alec's lips spread into a big smile. He didn't care if she had hit him or what the reasons for the punch had been; she had smiled, and that's all he wanted. Besides, he knew she was just putting up the tough chick act, much the same way he usually fell into the tough guy act.

_Must be on the genetic make up._

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The trip to meet the former Manticore's scientist wasn't long at all; his lab was, as a matter of fact, in the same sector as the Space Needle, and pretty close to Logan's former home.

The building was a tall one, and it gave the impression that the Pulse had never happened; the typical multinational company that withheld thousands of employees looking to prosper to finally be able to buy a house with a white picket fence that your neighbors would piss on every night.

"Logan said the doctor is in the basement. We've got to go down the elevator and it should be there," Max informed him as she parked her bike next to Alec's. They left their bikes on an alley, two blocks from the place they were supposed to go.

"Mmh huh," he mumbled. Max found his response strange, but shrugged it off.

Alec walked inconspicuously next to Max, looking everywhere with very well trained eyes; looking for enemies. They were hidden among the shadows of the night, walking soundlessly through the streets. He trusted Logan's judgment most of the time, but there was something odd about this whole situation and he couldn't shake this feeling away. There was nothing out of place, nothing suspicious outside.

"We're clear," he said with a puff of cold air leaving his mouth, as they reached the entrance of the building.

There were still people working inside the building, which was good in the case someone other than the doctor was waiting for them. The problem here was that they would have to go down to the basement, and he wasn't entirely sure there was any emergency exit route.

"Max, you sure about this?" he asked her before entering the building.

Truthfully, Max wasn't sure, but she had no other choice. "Yeah."

The receptionist, a cute little blonde woman, stopped them before they could get to the elevator.

"I'm sorry, but I'm gonna need your names," she politely called for them.

"Uhm, someone's waiting for us," Max explained, not liking the idea of leaving her name here.

"That's ok, but I need your names and sector passes, so I can give you a clearance pass. Company's policies," she explained, again with a sweet, polite voice.

Alec glanced over at Max and looked back at the lady, trying a different tactic. "Hey," he said as he approached the girl's desk and looked at her name tag, "Lindsay, listen, Doctor Mallory's waiting for us. He called, said it was important, and we completely forgot to bring our sector passes with us," he said with an apologetic, yet charming smile.

"Oh, but, I can't let you in without any kind of ID. Sorry," she explained.

Alec could tell Lindsay was a good, hard working girl, who was only doing her job.

"Ok, how about my driving license? I did bring that one," he tried.

She sighed, considering this, as she bit her pink lower lip.

"Well, I guess I can take that. But you have to hurry up, 'cause I'm not supposed to accept anything other than sector passes, and my supervisor'll be here in half an hour, ok?"

"No problem," he told her, as he pulled his fake driving license that read the name Martin McFly in it.

He gave her the ID and in return, she gave them a book where they both signed with fake names.

"Ok, here are your clearance passes Mr McFly and Miss Chase. Have a good evening," she said as she handed them the company's passes.

They took the elevator down, and found themselves in front a not so long corridor that withheld at least 6 doors.

"So. Which one is it?"

"Uhm… Not sure." Max walked through the hallway, until she found a door that read "Quinn Mallory". She pointed at the door with her head, and gave Alec a look that he understood as "you were sayin'?"

She knocked at the door and a quivering voice blurted. "Yeah?"

"Dr Mallory? I'm here in behalf of Logan Cale," she said to the still closed door.

"Oh—Ok, just—wait a second!" they heard the voice call.

Alec looked at the door suspiciously, feeling the cold barrel of his .45 against his lower back, which gave him a confidence not even his fighting skill could give him. They heard some ruckus going on in there and he couldn't help raising his left eyebrow, considering mentioning what he was thinking right now to Max. "What do you think he's doing in there?" She shrugged nonchalantly, her eyes fixed on the door with a blank stare. "Do you think he's got company?" he asked with a teasing smirk.

"Maybe he's in there with White," she said in the same teasing way, hoping that would shut him up, but no such luck, Alec always had a come back for everything.

"You think so? I never saw White as a "queen", to be quite honest, he's too macho. Or maybe he's just overcompensating. You never know."

She was about to shut him up when the door suddenly opened, and in front of them the scientist stood. He was easily 6'1'', his height only accentuated by his thin body. His wrinkled face and silver hair told of a man in his mid, late fifties, and the badge on the white cloak indicated this was Dr Mallory. He seemed nervous and twitchy, which amused Alec and annoyed Max. Was the future of her love life, actually Logan's life, in the hands of **this **man? That was in no way a comforting thought.

Alec looked the man up and down and nothing about him was familiar. The fact that he'd been to Psy-Ops more than most trangenics was not something Alec would brag about, but if there was something the many evaluations have provided him with, it was doctors' faces. He knew basically every single doctor that had worked in Manticore. Some more than others but there was not one of those men and women who were not printed into his photographic memory. And yet, he didn't know this man.

"Uhm, come in. Come in, please," he told them as he stepped away from the door to give them room to enter.

The blonde X5's shoulders tensed and he scanned the whole place for signs of an intruder. The lab was big and messy, although neither of them recognized any of the things you would usually find in a laboratory. There were many books and at least three boards where Dr Mallory had scribbled many mathematic equations.

"So," the scientist said, bringing the Transgenics' attention back to the old man. "You must be the virus carrier," he said casually to Max, still looking apprehensive.

Max eyed him, feeling more and more anxious due to his strange behavior. Why was he so nervous? She'd met scientists before and they were, at least most of them, anti-social geeks with superiority complexes. But this man refused to look Max or Alec in the eyes. That's when she noticed Alec hadn't stepped much into the lab; he had simply positioned himself near the door with a blank expression on his face that added to her anxiousness.

"The name's Max," she finally said as her eyes returned to the silver haired man in front of her.

Dr Mallory simply nodded and looked down at the table right next to him, where a syringe laid. "Should we start?" he stammered.

Max got rid of her leather jacket and started rolling up the long sleeve of her black t-shirt. She saw how the man held the syringe, slight tremors in his hands sparking her uncertainty, which Alec immediately voiced.

"You're not from Manticore," he stated, still standing close to the door, trying to hear the noise of those who were supposed to come for them.

"Wha-what?" the man tried to say, the shaking increasing, as well as the sweating.

Max saw this reaction, and started backing away from him. That was when he heard the smooth ring of the elevator indicating it had arrived and at least six armed men stepped out of it. In one swift movement Alec took the .45 from his belt and shot a couple of times, buying them some time. "We've got company!" Alec informed her.

As Alec took care of the unwanted company, Max tried to find an escape route but the place was like a cement box. No windows anywhere, no way out. She then looked at the man, the so called Dr Mallory who was hyperventilating by now, and grabbed him by the collar of the shirt below his lab coat.

"Who are you?" she asked low but menacingly.

"I'm- I'm," the man tried to say, but the situation was too overwhelming for him, the guilt too much for him to take. "I'm sorry," he finished with a sob.

"Max! There's no time for that! They're coming! We've gotta get out of here!" he said as he shot a couple more times.

"Is there a way out of here?" she asked the old man, but he wasn't paying attention to her anymore, in spite of the tight grip on his shirt's collar. He was staring at Alec, he was listening to the shooting outside. "Hey!" she shook him, "Focus! Is there a way out?!"

"Uhm," he uttered, forcing himself to pay attention instead of shutting down in fear. "Yes. This way."

Max let go of him as Alec secured the door which wouldn't hold once White came through it.

The scientist led them to a somewhat hidden room. As the metal door closed behind them, they heard the wooden door that had once read '_Quinn Mallory_' crash down against the floor.

"There're no windows," Max pointed out, "or doors."

This time it was Alec the one to grab Dr Mallory by the collar. "What the hell is going on?!"

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White's men entered first and secured the place; neither the scientist nor the two filthy transgenics were there. He looked around the laboratory, standing over the wooden door now lying on the floor. Where could they be? No doors, no windows. They couldn't just disappear. There had to be a hidden passage way somewhere. His head stopped to stare at one of the walls and a wicked smile shaped his lips.

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"I-I," the man stuttered. "A man came to me after work a few days ago. White, he said his name was."

Max and Alec shared a look. _Typical_.

"What did he want?" Alec asked, his growling easing as well as the grip on the man's collar.

"He said I had to pretend to be a doctor and get a blood sample from a woman that would be coming to see me. I asked why should I do it…" he gulped, feeling bile rising, as he paused a moment, his eyes with unshed tears. "He said he had my wife, Wade. And he would kill her unless I did what he said." He took a breath trying to hold back the tears threatening to fall from his eyes. By then, Alec had already freed him from his grip.

The scientist went on, "Then he explained something about a virus, told me a man would contact me regarding this and that I would have to pretend to be able to help him. White said he could arrange everything so he and you both would contact me."

"So, you're not even a doctor," Max stated rather than asked.

"No, I don't even wear a coat. I'm a physicist."

"But, I don't understand why would White get a physicist to portrait a doctor," Alec questioned out loud.

"I don't know why, I've been asking myself the same question. I guess I was just convenient," the scientist answered.

"Convenient, how?" Max asked.

"This company belongs to a close friend of this White guy."

"How d'you know?"

"Because my boss was standing right next to him as White told me he was going to torture my wife. The bastard just smiled at me," Quinn answered, remembering the dark street he had been cornered in, and how the soft light of a close street lamp turned his smile into a sneer. He was disgusted by the whole situation, not grasping the fact that he'd been working for such a man under the false believe that the company was working to create a better future for the United States and the world. But the Company's President's sneer made him realize there were no future plans to improve people's lives, just for the powerful to become richer and more powerful.

Alec still couldn't understand, so Max said: "Think about it, Alec. This whole place is run by Familiars. He just needed me cornered; it didn't matter how or why."

"He was also very eager to get a blood sample from you," the scientist added.

"How-" she began questioning when she was interrupted by a loud thud coming from the thick metal door.

So, you'id he could arrange everything so this man and you could contact me."irm him I would be able to help him. Quinn Mallory seemed bewildered by this, but Max and Alec knew exactly who was on the other side of that door. White.

"Alec," she whispered, anxiety and distress prominent in her features as she stared at the dent in the door.

He looked around hoping to find a way out, something that he might've not noticed the first time, but there was nothing new.

"I can get you out of here," the scientist suddenly said.

"Well, if it's through that door," Alec began, pointing at the metal door as they heard another thud; "Thanks, but no thanks." Alec was pretty sure the scientist was telling the truth, for the X5 had an uncanny talent to tell when people lied, but he still didn't trust the man.

"No, there's another way… another door, you could say," the old man stated as he walked towards a safe box.

Max watched with interest as the man approached the small, yet unbreakable –unless you were a transgenic- box, as confusion and curiosity took over her.

"Why?" she finally asked.

His movements slowed down, until he turned around to look Max in the eyes for the first time. "Because I can't do this. Whatever happens tonight, I know I'm a dead man already, as well as my wife." His eyes shot to the ground as images of his wife, dead, rushed into his mind. "I can't let him get his hands on you two. If he wants you so bad, then you must've done something right, and that's good enough for me," he finished.

Without anything else to add, he turned around and resumed to open the box as another loud *thud* echoed off the large, metal door.

Max stared at the man's back, feeling sorry for him. She could tell he loved his wife with all his might, but White wasn't one to keep his promises, and Quinn Mallory had known this after meeting the man probably only once. More lives ruined just because of her, of whom and what she was. More blood on her hands because of White's blind ambition of killing her.

Another thud brought Max back from her reverie. The dent on the door was getting bigger and bigger and it was only a matter of time before the hinges gave in and White busted through that door.

The scientist finally opened the box, removing a small, black device. On the front was a dark gray button located towards the center while a numberic pad was placed bellow it. On top of the gray button was what appeared to be some sort of timer system, which was turned off.

Alec made a face, which showed his disbelieve on the whole situation. _Of all the scientists in the world, we end up with the crazy one!_

"Is that your way out?" Alec asked out loud, not minding to conceal his amusement.

"Yes," the man simply answered, to Alec's grate annoyance.

"Yeah, out of your mind," he muttered under his breath.

_*Thud*_

Alec looked at the door and any remains of his smart-alecky thoughts and attitude died right there.

"It's a Parallel Universe Transporting Device. P.U.T," the crazy haired man explained to them.

"Put Device?" the blonde X5 asked, his sarcastic tone back despite their current situation.

"He said P.U.T and shutup!" Max said, tired of his little smart-ass comments, especially now, of all times.

_*Thud*_

"What does it do?" asked Max.

"Well, there isn't much time to get into this more deeply, so I'll try to explain it as simple as possible."

_*Thud*_

The scientist carried on, ignoring the noise. "This device opens a 'door', a wormhole, to parallel universes. You can travel from world to world with this little thing."

"So, this egg timer opens a door to other universes," Max repeated, not fully sure she was understanding the concept of the device. She was beginning to think Alec's observation that the scientist was "_out of his mind_" might not have been so far from the truth.

_*Thud*_

"Well, yes. The machine I built that powers the timer is safely hidden. I took it out of the lab after White took my wife. I couldn't leave my invention in the hands of such fascists."

_*Thud*_

Alec sighed in despair, as he shook his head. What the hell was this? What was this man talking about? P.U.T Devices and Parallel Universes? What was this, some 90's sci-fi TV show??

_*Thud*_

"By "_Parallel Universe_", you mean what I think you mean?" he wondered, hoping the answer was no.

"Well, a Parallel Universe is a world parallel, similar, to ours but with some differences. For example, a world where…" he tried to think of something; "Where I never met Wade, I never got married, thus White never forced me into this, and we aren't here right now. Or, a world where... there's nothing but shrimps to eat." Max's eyebrow rose. "Or not, maybe shrimps don't exist at all. Or maybe shrimps rule the earth."

_*Thud*_

"The point is," he carried on, knowing his last example had been rather quirky, "this other worlds might seem like this one, but they're not, there's always something different. The difference is either obvious, or it might be something small. But there's always something different."

The Transgenics could both hear the hinges slowly giving in.

"You press this button," Quinn said as he pressed on the dark grey button, and immediately a swirl of white, green and blue beams appeared in front of their eyes. It was a circle as tall as Joshua and twice as big as Brain. Both Max and Alec couldn't believe what they were witnessing.

"You just have to walk right through the wormhole," the scientist went on. "See the red numbers? These indicate how long it'll take for another wormhole to be created. Remember that if you don't activate it when the clock hits zero, you'll be stuck there. Indefinitely."

_*THUD!*_

Pieces of concrete surrounding the door began falling to the ground.

Alec, after the initial shock of seeing the wormhole, backed farther away from the door, still holding his .45, ready to shoot if necessary.

"What d'you mean '_remember_'?" Max asked.

_*THUD!*_

"I won't be going," Quinn informed her.

"What? He's going to kill you!"

"Without my wife, I'm dead anyway."

_*THUD*__ ***CRACKKK!***_

All at once the hinges gave. Alec knew there was no more time left.

"Max, we have to go," Alec yelled, leaving no room for discussion. "Now!"

The scientist threw Max the timer, who put it safely away inside the pocket of her leather jacket.

"Don't forget!" the scientist desperately yelled. "To get back home, you'll need-" but he was cut off when the door flew open with a resounding *_smack_* against the wall.

Alec grabbed Max by the hand and jumped through the wormhole as gunshots rang through the room.

Quinn Mallory fell to the ground with a gunshot wound through the chest. His eyes closing, remembering Wade's face and laughter, as his heart slowly bled to death.

White entered the room just in time to see a bright light quickly disappear. He had no idea what the phenomenon he had barely gotten a chance to witness was or why it had stopped, but he did know one thing.

452 and 494 were no longer in the room.

_**To Be Continued...**_

MK.-

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**A/N:** We would really appreciate it if you guys could review the chapters!!! I think this could help the writers get the chapters out in a quicker fashion!!


	2. Chapter 1: The World Where Max fights he

_By MK_: I truly apologize for how long it took me to post Chapter 1 here. Thank you Purplebunnywabbit for remind me that some people have no LJ and were probably waiting for me to post this.

First of all, I'd like to thank the people who have review the story, and those who haven't review but place the story on Story Alert. Thank you!!

Secondly, we're having some problems with the authors which is making the posting process very... VERY slow. Right now, I'm trying to finish an unfinished Chapter 2 for the author dropped on the middle of it, so hoefully I'll have that up soon.

For those who are familiarized with LJ, you may want to check the Community because we have some art work there, including a mandatory "movie poster" like banner for each chapter.

*sigh* All ofthis being said, enjoy!

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**Chapter 1**  
**Author**: MeryKey  
**Betas**: CC and Kelsey  
**Rating**: PG13… *shrugs*  
**Disclaimer**: Neither Dark Angel nor Sliders belong to me or any of the Nuns (although I know many of us wish we owned Alec… Mmmh, Alec). Although the characters Micah, Luz, Addy (which are only named in the story) actually don't belong to me, but the names do… :D

* * *

**Chapter 1: The World Where Max Fights Herself**

Alec felt his ass hit the ground as Max's weight slammed on top of him. His companion stood immediately, only to stumble back down, her head spinning around uncontrollably. Alec was suffering from the same symptoms, struggling to focus on where the floor began and where it ended, and why in the hell it kept spinning.

"Damn it," he muttered, trying to stand up. When he did manage his way, shakily, on his own two feet, the floor continued to move beneath him. He looked around and found absolutely no one except for Max; not even Quinn. In fact, despite the fact that the pieces of furniture were still there, the room simply wasn't the same one. The walls were painted on a light color, instead of the wore-down brown they had been when they had sheltered themselves in the room. It wasn't dirty or untidy, there weren't useless pieces of paper around the floor, and the familiar pieces of furniture seemed rather shinier than he remembered. For some reason, he had expected something different; he had expected to appear on a completely different world, on a completely different place than the scientist's office, but at least White wasn't there.

Once Max regained her balance, she joined Alec. The door to the hideout was open, and the rest of the office was completely empty. The blond X5 approached the door soundlessly with his .45 still in his hand. His head was not spinning as much as three minutes ago, so he took his chance and left the smaller room. Indeed, there was no one waiting for them in what used to be Mallory's scientific laboratory. In fact, the bigger room looked pretty much like the one he had just left; clean, empty and shiny. He frowned.

Max left their small shelter to stand next to Alec, frowning in much the same way. They shared a stare and left the place in a rush. They didn't leave the building through the entrance doors; they took the stairs to the third floor and started looking for a window that would allow them to land on a dark alley. They finally found one suitable for escape inside the men's restroom near the back of the building.

Alec was the first to jump; he landed with feline grace and swiftly looked around. He signaled Max to follow him once he was sure there were no possible aggressors near. As they walked down the alley, and then down the street among the shadows, they expected to find something different on the streets, something that would let them know they weren't home anymore, like a purple sky or walking, talking gigantic shrimps, but everything looked the same. Alec thought that maybe it hadn't worked; maybe it was never meant to work; maybe the man was just crazy. Opening 'doors' to alternate universes was not possible; sure, there were theories, just like with Time traveling, but no one had ever succeeded in proving the theories to be true.

He sighed. As much as he would like to believe Dr Mallory was a madman, he couldn't ignore the fact that in a lapse of barely ten seconds the entire office, both the larger and the smaller rooms, had completely changed. Not to mention, Quinn Mallory, White and his band of merry NSA agents had left the building, without leaving any trace of the Familiar's aggression towards the wooden door -that previously read '**Quinn Mallory**'- or the thick metal door that had protected them from White for a few minutes, until finally giving in.

"The bikes are gone," Max stated suddenly, Alec's thoughts coming to an abrupt stop.

He looked down at the gloomy alley where they had hidden their bikes, and found only a foul-smelling dumpster, with a couple of rats having dinner as a stray dog joined them. Only filth, which was characteristic of the world they knew. They were home alright.

"Great. Some punk ass idiot stole my bike. That's just-- great," he growled.

"Yeah, a **stolen** bike," Max corrected.

"Like yours was acquired fair and square, Maxie," he retorted, forgetting for a moment that they shouldn't be standing there, but instead heading towards Logan's.

"Whatever," she replied with a shrug. "Let's get moving."

They walked fast, though inconspicuously as to not draw any sort of unwanted attention. They remained alert for neither could completely comprehend what was going on.

They still had the sector passes that they'd told the receptionist they had forgotten safely tucked away, so Max and Alec handed them over to the police officers at the sector checkpoint. While the officers checked the validity of those, Max found herself lost in deep thought, while one of the policemen eyed her up and down, admiring her curves. Alec was the only one to notice this and found himself rolling his eyes at the man.

"_White was gone, Dr Mallory was gone, and to top it all, my bike was stolen_," Max's mind railed, but, suddenly, a voice inside her interrupted her train of thought. _What if the bikes were never there in the first place?_ Maybe Dr Mallory wasn't a nut job, maybe he had indeed created a device that could be used to travel through Parallel Universes. It sounded crazy, granted, but, at one time, so had space travel, or electricity. It was hard for her to grasp the meaning of all of this, and despite her tendency to deny everything, she was willing to consider that **maybe** it was possible.

With no further ado, the police officer gave them back their sector passes. The policeman that had been admiring Max's figure glanced at her with what he probably considered a sexy smile. He obviously hoped to get one in return, but she never even looked his way. She simply placed her documentation inside her jacket and resumed the walk towards Logan's. Alec chuckled at this, doing the same with his sector pass, although the policeman didn't try to dazzle him with his 'sexy' smile. He knew Max was beautiful, but 'beautiful' was a mere word to him, considering he had lived with dozens of women who could be categorized as 'beauties' or 'hotties', as Sketchy would put it. So, he found these kind of reactions from Ordinaries towards Max quite amusing and entertaining.

He noticed her knitted eyebrows and the way her teeth were nipping at her lower lip, and Alec knew immediately something was going on inside Max's little head.

"Max," he began, hoping to interrupt her strange thoughts. Her head snapped up to look at him, and he carried on. "You ok?"

She rolled her eyes. "Not again, Alec," she complained.

He grinned. "Well, pardon me for worrying about you," he responded, a fake hurt expression on his face.

Max mentally kicked herself at his words. He wasn't lying, he was actually worried about her and she actually appreciated his concern.

"Sorry," she said a few moments later as they headed towards Joshua's former home. They were near the Space Needle now, so the old house wasn't far away. "I just… do you really think he was right? Dr Mallory?"

"You mean, if his little egg timer actually works and we're right now stuck on some strange parallel universe?" She nodded. Alec sighed, thinking his words before they left his lips. "Honestly? I don't know, Max. It's kinda hard to believe… but then again, we're genetically engineered super soldiers. I guess it would be rather hypocritical of us to deem this as 'impossible', huh?"

"I was afraid you would say that," she admitted, but before she could continue, Alec stopped dead on his tracks. His eyebrows knitted into a frown and his head slightly tilted to the side. The dirty blond X5 seemed confused by whatever had gotten his attention. Max followed the direction his eyes were looking at and found the Space Needle, tall and dirty as it had always been.

"What is it?" she finally asked.

"The Needle," he answered simply, not even close to explaining his sudden interest.

"What about it?" she prodded.

"Don't you notice?" he told her, ripping his gaze form the tall building so he could stare at her now, with the same troubled eyes.

She looked again, and shook her head.

Alec sighed in frustration. One nice thing he'd done for her and she didn't even remember. She had even **smiled**, and now she didn't remember. _Really, this isn't a very good incentive for a guy to keep doing nice things!_

"Not two hours ago, I wrote '**cheer up, Maxie**' in yellow spray paint on that exact wall."

She frowned at this, remembering the nice gesture he had made for her and noticed now that the awkward looking message he had drawn was most definitely gone.

"I guess we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto," Alec quipped.

* * *

Joshua's former home was deserted. No traces of Logan anywhere. The house looked dark, dirty and cold; everything it used to be before Joshua. Granted, the place had still been pretty dirty, but at least the furniture hadn't been sprawled around, the books had been put in order on the bookshelves, and it had retained a subtle homey feeling.

Not even Logan's smell lingered in the place anymore. Max looked around, her concern slightly increasing by the ragged look of the place.

Alec sensed the tension building in Max's body, which was completely understandable due to the circumstances. The house that used to belong to Joshua and then to Logan held no memories of either men, making it pretty clear now, that this was definitely **not** home.

"Max, I'm sure Logan's just fine," he assured her. He rubbed his jaw, as he released a sigh. "Listen," he said after a moment, standing next to her now. "I know it's hard to believe, but I think the geek was right, Max. I think we're on some… Parallel Universe." He added the latter as if against his will. Yes, it was rather unbelievable, but the sooner they came to terms with their current situation, the sooner they could do something about it, no matter how incredible and fantastic it might be.

She glanced at him, admiring for a second his ability to look pass the obvious and move straight to the problem. He had just voiced what they both thought but didn't dare to say due to the implications this statement would bring. They weren't home anymore.

"Dr Mallory said we would have to activate the… wormhole as soon as the timer reached zero," he went on, as she reached for the timer inside her jacket's inner pocket. It read 7:27:31. "So, we have seven and a half hours until we can go back home."

"What makes you so sure we'll get right back home?" she asked.

"Well, the Dr said-" he began to explain matter-of-factly, before Max interrupted him.

"He was about to tell us how to get back home when he was shot and we jumped right into the wormhole, Alec."

"He was probably going to tell us that, Max," he explained dismissively.

"Well, for some reason, I don't think that just because **you** say, it's a fact," Max answered with some venom in her voice. At first, his behavior had quelled her concern, but now, it was annoying the hell out of her. They were stuck on a freaking **Parallel Universe**! Could he at least try to act like they were in deep shit instead of shrugging the whole situation off with his goddamn shoulder?!

"Well, what would you suggest we do? Sit here and wait for everything to magically disappear?"

"No, you moron!" she spat, letting off some steam as she hit his arm, hard. She turned around and left the old house in a quick pace. Max grunted as she stormed down the steps, quickly walking down the street toward an undetermined destination. Anywhere away from Alec right now would be great.

Still standing inside what used to be Joshua's place, Alec sighed again and rolled his eyes. _What did I do now?_ Whatever it was, they would have to deal with it later. They couldn't get separated. It was too dangerous now that they depended on an egg timer to get them back home.

He chased after her and held her arm gently. "Max, wait up."

She fought his hand and freed her arm, but he just blocked her path and grabbed onto her shoulders. "Stop," Alec commanded.

She stopped, but not because he had told her so. Slapping his hands away, she glared daggers at him. God, he hated her mood swings!

"What?" she practically growled.

"You can't just walk away, Max. We have to stick together; if we don't, one of us might end up stuck here," he tried to explain.

Her arms crossed over her chest and her hip propped to the right, telling him she wasn't in a very good mood. _What's new?_ But she wasn't leaving or beating him, which meant she was at least listening.

"I wasn't leaving. I'm not stupid, you know?" she spat.

"I wasn't implying you were leaving, I was just trying to point out that strange things usually happen to us, and if one of these strange things happens to either of us while we're stuck on some strange dimension, it would be a good idea if the other one was around."

She simply rolled her eyes.

"Now," he carried on. "What d'you suggest we do other than 'slide' through this wormhole once it's time?"

She looked everywhere but at Alec, not wanting give him the satisfaction of telling him he was right. She bit her lower lip as her mind started working on a solution.

"Well," she said, her hands now resting on her hips. "What if we try to find Dr Mallory?"

Alec frowned a moment. "**This world's** Dr Mallory?"

She nodded. "He's not in his office, we know that as much. But maybe he's somewhere out there, working on this same project," she said, holding the timer up. "He might be able to answer our questions. What? You look surprised, Alec. Not used to being stuck with a woman with a brain, are ya?" she said, a smirk on her lips.

Yeah, he got the insult. But, unfortunately, it was a good idea.

"So, where should we start? A phonebook?"

"Yeah, good luck trying to find one!" she scoffed as they started walking back towards the sector checkpoint they had gone through twenty minutes ago.

"Well, then what?" he asked in annoyance.

"Logan!" she stated as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

"But we don't know where Logan is," Alec stated, also, as if stating the obvious. "Maybe this World's Logan left Seattle."

"Or maybe he's back at Fogel Tower," she replied.

"Maybe he's dead." That comment only awarded him with a very sharp slap on the head.

"Idiot!"

* * *

Max and Alec silently walked through the dark streets of Sector Five towards Logan's former home; as far as they knew, anyway. Max remained silent all the way, her thoughts on Alec's stupid comment, considering the possibility that it could be true. A sudden weight fell on her chest and she felt like she couldn't breath.

_No_, she told herself. _He's not dead, he can't be_. A few tears threatened to leave her dark eyes, and as much as she tried to hold them back, one tiny little sucker made a run for it and succeeded. Max looked to her left, so Alec wouldn't see the tiny tear rolling down her cheek. She brushed it away with her hand and her companion never knew the incident had ever happened.

"D'you notice something strange?" Alec's words suddenly brought her back to the street they were walking.

"Are you honestly asking me that?" she replied, coming to a stop. Since the moment they walked through the wormhole she'd noticed something strange.

"I mean, right now, on this street. Well, on all the streets we've walked so far," he corrected.

She looked around. Despite the fact Sector Five was one of the few left that withheld the rich and not-so-famous, it still remained part of the reality that the United States had lived in ever since the pulse. The streets were dirty, the walls were covered with graffiti and from time to time you could openly see people sleeping on the sidewalk. She noticed poverty was still a reality in this World, but remembering Alec's observation regarding the disappearance of his own graffiti on the Space Needle's wall, she examined the street thoroughly.

She looked at Alec. "No Trannie-Hate banners," she replied as the realization hit her.

"Not a single one, in either sector, Max," he added, placing his hands on his jeans' pockets. It was cold and a light rain started falling on the city of Seattle. They started walking again, their pace still quick.

"What does this mean?" Max thought out loud. "Maybe," she carried on after a moment; Alec walked next to her deep in thought. "Maybe ordinaries still don't know about our existence. Maybe transgenics are still on the DL."

Alec remained silent, trying to decide if he should voice the thought that had just crossed his mind. He decided to speak out loud in the end.

"Maybe none of the transgenics ever escaped."

Max considered this possibility, tension building in her shoulders again. Placing her hands inside her jeans, she decided not to think of any possible answers for their questions, at least until they found either Logan or Quinn.

* * *

The two transgenics had sneaked into Logan's formerly sleek Fogel Tower in the middle of the night. They had passed by the security of the building with absolutely no problems, although both Max and Alec were used to it.

Max took her lock pick out of her jacket, where it always was, and worked on the lock of what she thought guarded Logan's place of residence. Knocking was simply not an option. This way, if Logan wasn't the owner of that apartment, the actual owner would never know they had been there.

The door opened quite easily, and they both entered the place; her heart swelled at the sight of the apartment. Every single piece of furniture, every single work of art, simply everything she remembered was there. It was Logan's apartment, alright.

It was dark, but they could hear a buzz that they recognized as Logan's computer working. They went straight to the man's studio but despite the fact all his equipment was in excellent shape and it was still turned on, Logan was nowhere to be seen. Max moved smoothly towards the bedroom, remembering Logan sometimes went to sleep and left his computer running. It was at that moment that a shot gun cocked somewhere near her right. She turned to see none other than Eyes Only himself pointing the shot gun at them.

"Logan," she muttered with a sigh of relief. A big smile formed in her mouth; at least one thing from the world she knew was okay.

It seemed to Alec like he was the only one of the two transgenics who realized Logan was still aiming at them, for Max simply smiled at Logan, despite the fact the guy looked like he was ready to shoot.

"What're you doing here?" the older man asked sharply. "Who sent you?"

Max frowned at this. _What?_ "Logan, it's me, Max," she replied.

"Oh, well, then. **Max**, who sent you?" he repeated, with the unrelenting weapon in his hands.

She frowned even more; she couldn't understand for a moment what was going on, but only when her eyes met Alec's it dawned on her that somehow this world's Max had never met Logan. He didn't know who she was.

Great, how was she going to explain this now?!

An almost undetectable noise broke Max's train of thoughts, before she could even try to explain to Logan who she was and what she was doing here. Both Alec's and Max's heads snapped to the right towards the man's studio and, beyond that, the living room. They shared a stare that only lasted barely a second.

Logan, being an ordinary, had not heard the noise, so according to him only the two transgenics were the only intruders, but they both knew better, and seeing as the weapon Logan owned was still pointing at them, Alec blurred to the man, and twisted his right arm; Logan let go of the gun, and Alec claimed it as his own as he placed the other one around Logan's mouth, signaling for him to keep quiet.

For some reason, the man did as he was instructed.

The noise they had heard was completely out of the ordinary. It was the mute sound only trained feet could produce as they hit the ground with graceful elegance. Max and Alec would know; they had both been trained to land in the same way. It's entrance suggested that the intruder was looking to remain undetected by the people inside the apartment. Someone who had something to hide.

Max signaled Alec to go around the studio towards the living room, as she made her way there through the dining room.

It wasn't long until Max encountered the intruder in Logan's very dark dining room, dressed in a black burglar suit and a black ski mask. She felt the intruder's fist connect with her jaw as he launched himself towards her; the force of the punch caused Max to back up a bit, hitting the dining table. The intruder was fast, extremely fast, but Max was now ready. Her opponent tried to attack her again, but she regained her balance much quicker than the intruder had expected. Max saw the fist directed to her kidney and blocked it, delivering a quite a sharp blow to her opponent's masked face with her small yet powerful elbow.

She heard something crack and figured his nose must have been bleeding under the black mask, but he didn't attempt to assess the damage on his face like an ordinary opponent. She noticed in the small second it took for him to retaliate that he had quite a small frame; actually, he was practically her height, but he was strong. So strong she began wondering if this intruder was actually a Familiar.

It was then that he yanked his head back and banged his forehead against Max's face with all the strength he could master from his spine. She hit the ground and the intruder jumped on top of her, his strong yet tinny hands around her neck, depriving her of air. She fought against her aggressor, but as much as she tried, she couldn't get those strong hands off her.

A gun cocked next to them, which was immediately followed by Alec's unsettlingly calm voice: "Let her go or your brain becomes part of the decoration."

The aggressor let go of her, obviously assessing his possibilities. As he stood up from the floor, Alec realized he was actually a she, and a very curvaceous she. Max stood as well, a hand massaging her throat as she coughed. A sharp pain hit her pharynx as soon as she did that.

The lady dressed in black burglar suit tried to move, apparently to go for it, but Alec's trained eye caught the slight movement and before she could move any further, he announced: "Don't even try it, sweetheart. Don't let the looks fool ya, I'm way faster than I seem."

She didn't move, the gun was pointing right between her eyes.

Max walked towards Alec and stood next to him, her hair no longer hiding her face and the fast movements of the fight no longer masking her features. The intruder's eyes went wide behind the mask.

"Turn around," Alec ordered her, "down on your knees, and put your hands on your head."

She obliged a few seconds later, her eyes still on Max until she was facing the wall.

"Logan, got a couple of handcuffs?" he called.

The old man stood behind the two transgenics, witnessing the capture of the intruder on his own dining room. He stared at Max and Alec and then back at the intruder, not sure what was going on. He didn't know who these people were or how they knew him, but he nodded and rushed towards his bedroom.

Alec's eyebrows rose high on his forehead for a second and then descended to form a frown. "I **really** don't wanna know."

Logan came back and handed the handcuffs to Alec, who stared at them uncomfortably, thinking _'what happens in that room will most definitely__** stay**__ in that room'_. Alec signaled Logan to handcuff the lady intruder while he aimed at her.

What happened next occurred so fast that it would've taken an Ordinary days to comprehend the event, but both Max and Alec saw it as if in slow motion and they reacted by instinct. The woman grabbed Logan's wrist, and spun him through the air; while his thirty-something year old body hit the ground with a loud thump, Max had already blurred towards the intruder with her hand formed into a fist. The lady blocked Max's attack, but as she did, Alec directed the butt of the shot gun to the lady's head with great force. She fell to the floor, her vision became blurry, and eventually she blacked out.

Alec immediately handcuffed her, not wasting any time. He moved her body to a sitting position, not the least bit preoccupied with being a gentleman.

Logan stood slowly, a sharp pain shooting throughout his back. Max wanted to help him, but she still carried a virus that could kill him, Alternate Universe or not.

Now that the intruder was secured, unconscious and handcuffed on the floor, Alec took the mask off, only to find Max's face, a heavy flow of blood coming from her nose.

"Wha-?" Max paused a moment, the shock too great for her brain to form any type of speech. "Sam?" she whispered, not understanding why Sam would come to Logan's dressed as if she were on a mission. But she had to remind herself for the hundredth time today that, despite the improbabilities, she was on a different World, another reality, and things were different.

Alec noticed something strange; she didn't look like Sam. Despite the belief that Max and Sam looked exactly alike, he knew otherwise. Their eyebrows were shaped differently, and Max's skin was a tiny bit darker than Sam's, probably due to the fact that Max had been exposed to the sun longer than any of the kids left at Manticore had. In fact, he had noticed recently that despite the constant rain and cloudy skies, his face had become covered with freckles caused by the sun. This person's, allegedly Sam's, face was a different shade of cinnamon that wasn't Max's. So, it could be his former Manticore fellow, but there was still something off. Her left eyebrow; Sam had had a tiny scar there, almost invisible, except to the trained eye. And the scar wasn't there.

Instead of continuing to debate about weather this was Sam or not in his head, Alec moved this girl's head in order to take a look at her barcode and indeed found what he'd been looking for.

332960073452

His eyes snapped back at Max, who frowned at him. How do you break this kind of news to someone? _'Hey, let me introduce you to… yourself!'_ Boy, they were going to need therapy after this.

"This… isn't Sam," he stated slowly.

"Then who is it? Is it another clone?" she inquired.

Alec wasn't sure how to explain this to her, particularly because he didn't understand it himself, in the first place. At his lack of words, she advanced towards the person with her face, knowing something was wrong. But before she could reach the woman's head, Alec spoke again.

"She's not Sam. She's… you. She's 452."

He waited for a reaction, although he didn't expect the scoff and the roll of the eyes. "Please, Alec. Don't be ridiculous."

She reached for the head finally, and Alec let her. If she didn't want to believe him that was her problem.

332960073452

_No, there must be something wrong_. But there wasn't; the barcode was real and it was perfectly embedded on the lady's neck just like hers.

She stretched her back slowly, her eyes not daring to look at herself on the floor, or at Alec, for that matter.

"What's going on?" Logan's annoyed voice suddenly demanded.

Max's head snapped so fast it seemed to crick.

"Right," she uttered, "you don't know us."

"I think I would remember you two if we'd ever met."

"You should sit down," she advised him, as she led him to the living room, Alec following close behind, all his senses focus on 452, the fake-Max.

Logan sat, thinking that these two strangers had broken into his home in the middle of the night, and even though he'd aimed at them with his shot gun, they had saved his life. He wasn't a fool. He knew what that woman was and why she was here. The question was: why did she look exactly like this beautiful girl, Max he thought he had heard the other call her.

"I don't think you know me, but I do know you." Max started really easily, but as soon as the time to reveal the truth came, she wasn't so sure she could go through it. She took a deep breathe, and started slowly. "You're not gonna believe this story, but… it's true. It happened. It **is** happening right now, and we need your help."

Logan nodded his head, letting her know she could carry on.

Max tried to explain the best she could how they had ended up there at his apartment. She explained about Dr Mallory, about White, about the wormhole. Everything.

Logan simply blinked in his seat.

"So… what you're saying is that we know each other on another Universe, another reality."

Max nodded, as well as Alec, who had added nips and pieces here and then.

"And you need my help to find this Dr Mallory in order to find your way back home."

They nodded again.

"You were right, I don't believe you," Logan said immediately.

Max's shoulders slumped. Alec rolled his eyes, thinking that he wouldn't have believed the story himself had he not been stuck in another reality.

"Listen, it doesn't matter whether you believe us or not. We need your help to find this guy." Alec stated with an annoyed tone.

Logan eyed both transgenics, although he didn't know they were made in a lab. He sighed.

"We just saved your life," Max pointed out in a soft voice.

"Fine," he replied in defeat. "I'll help. But, first, you gotta tell who you are… really." Logan had seen their moves - or rather hadn't been able to see them, because both Max and her companion, the male called Alec, had moved with such speed that it had been difficult for his eyes to follow them.

Both Max and Alec exchanged a look. Max really didn't want to get into this, but there was no way she could avoid it. She took a deep breath, but before she could even start, Alec opened his mouth.

"We're from Manticore," he stated nonchalantly.

"Alec!" she hissed. What a way to be discrete.

"What? You want me to sugarcoat it for him?? Manticore sent a trained assassin to kill him off. Do you really think he's not involved in this?"

"I know Manticore," Logan interrupted the transgenic banter. "I got an anonymous report a few years ago about a covert genetics lab in the Wyoming Mountains," Logan carried on. "I located a guy who claimed something called Project Manticore was using recombinant DNA to produce a superior human… a warrior… an advanced infantry soldier. I know who you are. There were a couple dozen of these transgenic kids. And in '09, a few months before the pulse, 12 of them escaped."

Max listened carefully, remembering those exact same words from a couple of years ago. She realized some parts had been rephrased thanks to her genetically engineered memory, but the idea was the same. She was supposed to say **'Twelve?'** next, and then he would tell her he could help her find the rest, in exchange for her help. Except this time, she already knew twelve of her siblings had gotten away, and she'd lost four of them ever since they'd found her.

"Yeah, we know," Alec answered, remembering the day of the escape as if it had been printed into his memory bank.

"So, you two **did** escape in '09," the old man stated.

"Yes," Max answered. "Well," she began in a second thought. "I did. Alec left Manticore later."

"When it blew up a year ago," he added, noting that Max hadn't mentioned that part for some reason.

"Right," she muttered.

"Manticore never blew up, that I know," Logan informed them.

Max frowned. "This was about a year ago. Outside the Seattle area. They covered the whole thing by saying that the S1W burned down a VA Hospital."

"Does any of this ring a bell?" Alec asked.

"Nope. Neither Manticore nor a VA hospital burnt down over the past year."

Max looked at the woman unconscious on the floor, her head hanging, her nose still bleeding. This **woman** was herself. That was her. Manticore didn't burn down, she didn't escape. Or maybe she had and she'd been recaptured. Maybe she'd been reindocrinated and turned into Manticore's perfect Soldier girl.

Max sighed, her head starting to hurt due to all the thinking. All the possibilities, all the information were simply too much for her.

"So, what exactly is it you need me to do?" Logan interrupted Max's little reverie.

"We need you to locate Dr Mallory; Quinn Mallory," Alec answered.

"Well, have you tried the phonebook?" the bespectacled man questioned.

Alec gave Max a look, a look she willingly ignored. In reality, she had dismissed his idea not because she thought they wouldn't find his name on the phone book, but simply because she knew they wouldn't be able to find one in the first place. She hadn't tried to explain her point to Alec simply because she hadn't been in the mood.

Logan interpreted their silence as a no, so he moved towards his studio, where his computer equipment laid. He walked right next to Max, but she jumped backwards in fear. That caught Logan's attention, and frowned at her. He raised his eyebrows questioningly, but her eyes went to the floor, not believing she would have to do this again. Tell the man she was toxic.

Alec decided he was done with the revelations; he was getting bored of all of this way too fast.

"I'm gonna check on… 452," he said, deciding to call the fake-Max by her designation from now on to avoid confusion.

He didn't wait for any of their responses, he simply left. The blond X5 walked towards the bathroom to get a wet towel so he could clean up 452's bleeding nose.

He crouched next to her and assessed the damages to her nose. It wasn't broken, but it was swollen and a big black and blue bruise was starting to appear from the center of her nose to the sides.

He cleaned the blood from her face; fortunately her nose had stopped bleeding, but not before covering her full lips and chin.

Once he was done he checked his wrist watch. It read 12:36. He sighed, irritated. He could be home right now, having a beer and getting ready to go to bed. Or even better, having a beer and getting ready to go to bed with a girl. Instead, he was trapped in an Alternate Universe, hanging at Logan's - he shook his head in disbelief at this particular thought- looking over Max's duplicate as the original one tried to explain everything to a disbelieving, alternate-reality Logan.

_God, my life's so ridiculous right now. _

He stood and went to the kitchen to find something to eat, but not before placing 452's unconscious body on Logan's couch.

Logan sat at his computer, waiting for Max to explain her reaction a few moments ago. She stood at her usual place, a safe distance from him. She bit her lip and crossed her arms, rolling her eyes at herself as she realized she could delay this no longer.

"I'm sorry I reacted like that, just now. It's nothing personal, it's just… I told you we know each other." Logan nodded. "Well, I was recaptured by Manticore about a year ago, almost four months before it blew up. They knew I knew you; they knew I knew Eyes Only," she revealed. Max saw Logan open his mouth to argue that, but she simply carried on. "There's no point denying it. You're Eyes Only, and I used to help you. I still do," she added, realizing what the past tense meant; she simply didn't want to remember it like that. Like something she **used** to do, because those things she'd done for Logan had made her feel good, made her feel alive, and she'd felt a connection not only to Logan but to all the people she'd helped. It was while helping Logan, that she'd felt human for the first time. "So, they injected me with a virus. It's genetically targeted to your DNA. Which means if we touch, you die." Her voice had remained soft, especially during that last part, and he'd heard something resembling guilt in her tone. Although he couldn't blame her.

The whole story, from the wormhole and the Parallel Universe to a Virus encoded to kill only him seemed farfetched to him. But he knew Manticore, and he believed they could do almost anything they set their minds to.

"Oh," he uttered simply.

Max refused to add anything regarding their so called romantic relationship; things were complicated enough.

Alec had prepared himself the biggest sandwich in the history of sandwiches. He had to get a plate and had to cut it in four different pieces; otherwise he would have spilled its entire contents and that would have been a true shame. The sandwich was midway to his mouth when he heard someone make his way in through the front door.

Alec placed the sandwich back on the plate.

452's backup maybe? He didn't know, but he took cover and got his gun out.

A young, brown scruffy haired man walked through the door. By the looks of his clothes, he didn't seem to be on any rescue mission; he was on a pair of somewhat baggy jeans and a dark t-shirt underneath a black, fitted leather jacket. He walked casually as if he knew his way around the place, and his first stop was the kitchen.

"Logan!" the unknown man called as he searched through the older man's refrigerator. He noticed most of the groceries that usually could be found inside the refrigerator were on the counter, spread around carelessly. He shrugged at this. As clean and tidy as Logan was, when he was on one of his Eyes Only crusades, he could turn into a stinky slob. "I saw Asha; she needs to talk to you, man."

Both Logan and Max looked up at the sound of a manly voice calling Logan's name. A manly voice Max didn't know.

Alec relaxed as he heard Asha's name being mentioned, immediately assuming this man and Logan were either friends or acquaintance. But judging by the way he was taking over Logan's kitchen, he would say friends. Alec propped one shoulder over the column at one side of the kitchen, and crossed his arms.

"Logan's kinda busy right now; would you like me to take a message?" Alec quipped at the unknown young man, although not younger than him.

The brown haired man turned, his eyes fixed on Alec immediately, assessing him from his smirk to his pose.

"Ben?" the man whispered.

Alec frowned, his smirk lost as soon as his twin's name escaped the other man's lips. Immediately, faster than he ever saw an ordinary move, the man standing next to the open refrigerator snatched a pretty big knife and threw it at Alec. His trained reflexes kicking in. Alec moved to his left as the column suffered his fate; his eyes traveled first over the knife lodged on the wooden column and then back at the man, who was moving towards him.  
Alec jerked his head back to avoid the punch, and he couldn't ignore anymore the fact that his opponent was an X5. He stopped a second punch with his hand, and threw another at the man's face.

"Seth!"

"Alec!"

They both stopped, their fists inches away from each other's face.

"Logan! What's he doing here?" the scruffy haired man demanded, eyeing the dark haired girl standing next to the bespectacled man. Her eyes looked so familiar.

"What d'you mean? They're here for some help," Logan tried to explain.

"Help? Really? What did he tell you his name was?" Alec's opponent sneered as he nodded towards Alec.

Logan glanced at Max, looking for confirmation for that data, although he couldn't understand why Seth was acting this way.

"His name's Alec," Max answered, before Logan could.

Both X5 males were tense as they held a tight grip on the other, though they did lowered their fists.

"Alec?" he said, incredulously at the girl. "Sorry, sweetie, but his name ain't **Alec**. Don't know what kind of fairytale story he has been feeding you, but he's not who he says he is."

Her eyes became fire at his choice of a nick name for her. She hated being called "**sweetie**". Taking a hold of his wrist, Max detached the man from Alec's jacket and, kicking the back of his knee while applying some strength, she threw him onto the floor. With her own knee on his throat now, she brought her face close to his. "Well, **sweetie**, trust me when I tell you his name's Alec," she answered him with the sweetest voice she could muster.

"He thinks I'm Ben," Alec said then, catching Max's attention. Her eyes filled with shock as they fell on the man beneath her knee.

"Who are you?" she ordered.

"That depends," the man said in a strangled voice. Max applied more pressure to his throat.

"His name's Seth," Logan informed her immediately, confirming his suspicion about X5s and their stubbornness. "He's an X5, like you."

_Seth… could he possibly…_

"He escaped on 2009, as well," Logan finished.

Max let go of him, but her eyes remained on Seth.

_Another sibling_, thought Alec, holding back an eye-roll.

"It's me. Max," she said, with the same sweetness and patience Alec had only heard her use around Zack.

Seth slowly stood from the floor, rubbing his throat, a frown placed on his face.

"No, but you—you didn't make it," he said as if talking to a ghost.

"What?" she uttered.

"You never escaped…"

* * *

It was hard to explain to Seth where they came from, but after seeing an unconscious 452 on Logan's couch and verifying that indeed both women carried the same barcode, Seth decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.

"So, you're like Ben's twin," he said to Alec, who had devoured his sandwich by now, leaving many crumbs on the couch and on his lap.

"Yeah, you could say that," Alec answered, standing up, crumbs falling to the floor.

"And you guys showed up just as… well, 452 here tried to kill Logan. Don't you think this is too much of a coincidence?" he asked, his voice making clear he still didn't trust them, probably because he still thought Alec was actually Ben and Max was Manticore-Max.

"Well, if there's such a word as '**coincidence**', then coincidence must exist, don't you think?" Alec quipped.

"What Alec's trying to say," Max interrupted, frowning at her X5 friend, "is that we know it sounds strange, but, unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of hesitating at this point. We need to find Dr Mallory to be certain we'll go home once we activate the timer."

"You can believe us or not, I don't particularly care. All we need is for Logan to locate that man, and we'll be gone," Alec finished, with his own touch of mockery.

Just then, Logan called for them. The three X5s went to the older man's studio and stood behind him.

Logan sat in front of his computer, an opened file exposed on the screen.

"I found something. It took me a while, 'cause there are no records of any Quinn Mallory anywhere in Seattle, or Washington." Max's shoulder's slumped. "But I found an address under a Wade Mallory. No phone number registered. I thought maybe this could help a little."

"That's his wife," she informed, a slight sigh of relief leaving her lips. "We should go over there, see if she knows something about Quinn or this project." Max saw the address on the screen and in less than 2 seconds she had it memorized.

"I'll come with you," Seth immediately offered, before Alec could say anything. Alec eyed Seth, although really he should be thanking the man; now he wouldn't have to leave the safety of Logan's apartment and risk his own neck.

Max gazed at Seth, a bit startled, and after a moment she nodded. Putting on her jacket, she made her way out of the apartment along with Seth, but not before Logan called to her with a "Be careful".

Max smiled and shook her head, thinking even in this reality where he didn't know her, he worried about her.

Alec simply rolled his eyes, and held back a couple of remarks on that subject, because Max wasn't out of earshot yet and he had suffered one too many rage attacks from that woman due to his tendency to make fun of Logan.

Alec's watch read 1.12am when Max left Eyes Only's apartment.

* * *

The address Logan had found was located in Sector 11, so it would take them some time to get there. Max took out the timer that had been resting inside her jacket to see how much time they still had left. Reading the screen, she realized they had 5 hours, 21 minutes and 53 seconds to find Dr Mallory.

"So," Seth said, bringing her back to this reality. She put the timer back inside her jacket. "I figure we never actually met in this Parallel Universe of yours."

"No, we never met. Actually," she added as a realization hit her. "I never knew you had escaped. Logan told me—well, the Logan I know, told me 12 of us had escaped. Brin, Tinga, Zack, Jondy, Krit, Syl, Zane, Ben, Micah, Luz, Addy and me," Max explained.

"That's probably because I escaped a day after you guys did. I made it out between all the confusion," Seth told her.

"So, thirteen kids escaped Manticore."

"No, twelve. Eleven escaped that night, and I followed them soon after. You—452 never escaped," he added, softly.

"Huh." She found that piece of information odd. She couldn't stop wondering if the Seth from her reality had escaped as well and knew Logan. _No, I would know if Logan knew Seth._ "So, how long have you been in Seattle?"

Seth told her he'd arrived a few years ago - four to be more exact - and had known Logan for three years. They used to have a simple agreement: he would help Logan with his Eyes Only missions, and Logan would help Seth leave the country. But when he'd finally been ready to leave, he'd found that he couldn't. There were too many people he would miss; one lady in particular.

Max grinned at this. "I know what you mean." She then added after a pause: "Have you found any of the others?"

"A few. I found Ben. What about you?"

Max knew what he was trying to find out. She also knew that due to Alec's presence, this conversation would have to take place at some point.

"I did. But he—he died," she simply answered.

"Manticore took him," Seth added a few moments after, explaining what had happened to the Ben from this reality.

"Maybe it was for the best," she whispered, holding back a tears threatening to leave her eyes.

* * *

After forty-five minutes, Alec was bored out of his skull. This Logan, just like the one he knew, didn't own a TV. So there was nothing else he could do except eat and annoy Logan, who was working on some Eyes Only project as he waited for Seth's and Max's call.

Alec stood in the middle of the older man's studio, sighing every once in a while. His hands in his pockets, he started rooting through Logan's stuff, touching things, moving things around, just making unnecessary noise that was beginning to drive Logan crazy.

"Alec." The young X5 stopped. "Will you please stop doing that?"

"Doing what?" he asked innocently.

"Would you please sit down? I can't think with all that noise," the older man insisted.

Alec sighed again. "Why don't you have a TV, anyway?" he asked frustrated at the thought.

"Just because," Logan dismissed him easily.

The X5 sat in the chair in one of the corners after taking a look at the still unconscious 452.

"So," he began, unable to keep quiet for more than two minutes. "What did you do this time to get Manticore pissed off at you?"

"What d'you mean **this time**?" Logan asked, his eyes never leaving the computer screen.

"Well, you know. Last time, you pissed them off enough for them to send your radioactive girlfriend to finish you off."

That made Logan frown, and now his eyes were now on Alec. "My girlfriend?"

_Crap. I wasn't supposed to say that_. "Oh, no! You guys aren't like that," he immediately said, trying to fix his error while holding back a chuckle. _Yeah, right! _"She's just your friend and she happens to be a girl. That's all."

"Huh," was all Logan could utter. Back to his computer screen, he asked to Alec. "You two are together?"

Alec frowned, panic in his eyes. _Is he asking what I think he's asking? _

"Max and me? Together?" Logan nodded in affirmation. "As in a couple?" the older man nodded again. "No way! We just have a complicated relationship."

Logan eyed him, not believing a single word Alec was saying. Alec just rolled his eyes at the man.

* * *

"The place is completely empty. There's no one in here, and it seems no one's been here for quite some time," Seth informed Logan over his cell phone as he dusted his shoulder after passing through a door frame covered in spider-webs.

Max looked around, hoping to find some clue as to where Dr Mallory or his wife could be, but they had left nothing behind, or whatever they had left had been stolen already.

_"Well, I haven't found anything else. I'm trying to find some records on the wife, see if I can find maiden name, maybe some relatives, but no luck yet."_

Max then took Seth's cell from his hands and said to the receiver: "What if you try a country-wide search. I mean, he has to be somewhere."

_"Uhm, well, I think I could do that, but it might take some time."_

It was then that Alec took the phone from Logan's hand and spoke into the receiver. _"Max, we can't do that. We don't have time."_

"Alec, this could be our only chance to find answers. For all we know, he could be close by. You don't know whether or not we'll run out of time."

_"Neither do you. Max, we don't even know if this thing works outside Seattle. So, even if we do find him eventually, there won't be time to get back and slide through the wormhole." _

His voice was sincere. All he wanted was for Max to understand his point; he was way too tired and way too pissed off to fight with her right now, and he thought Max knew that.

She sighed. There were too many things to consider, and too many thoughts crossed her mind at once. What if they never went back home and instead kept sliding from alternate universe to alternate universe? But what if they went off to track down Dr Mallory and then found out their time was up? Would they find themselves unable to get back home? Should they go for it? What if they got stuck here? Was 'here' better than any other AU they could slide into?

"Ok," she finally agreed, looking at her watch. 2:51am. "Has 452 woken up already?"

_"Not yet."_

"See you guys in a few."

Her eyes opened slowly, wincing at the sharp pain in both her nose and the back of her head. She felt dizzy and completely disoriented. She felt her hands cuffed behind her back and her eyes opened immediately, regardless of the pain.

_Cale's place_, she remembered. _What? The fight! With… 453?_

"Hey, there, Sleeping Beauty," the hazel-eyed man that had been pointing a shotgun at her said.

She noticed then that her feet as well as her hands were tied. Great!

452's expression was completely blank; she wore the mask Manticore had taught them to use to hide their emotions. But she couldn't help feeling like she knew this man.

"You were out for quite sometime, there. I thought I might have hit you a bit too hard," Alec carried on sarcastically, hoping to get something out of that mask he knew so well.

"Not really. It was more the shock of such a **big man** hitting like a little girl, Pretty Boy."

Alec whistled. _Feisty_. He chuckled and crouched near her. "Want something to drink?" he offered while an amused grin adorned his lips.

"No, thank you. You're a regular of this joint?" she answered, making fun of his offering.

Alec chuckled again. "Not really."

They both fell quiet, but as Alec simply observed her for any strange movements, she was eyeing him intently, in a way Max had never looked at him. It was making him feel uncomfortable. Actually, Max had been wearing that stare the first time they'd met, and it dawned on him that 452 probably thought he was Ben, just like both Max and Seth had assumed. And as the thought crossed his mind, her words spoked out loud what was going on in his head.

"Ben?"

Her walls seemed to crumble as she raised her eyebrows, giving her the look of a lost girl. Her once cold eyes were now big and expectant. Max's eyes.

He shook his head mentally, stressing the fact that although both women shared the same barcode, they simply weren't the same person. She wasn't the Max he knew. She was Manticore, and ever since they'd torched the place down to cover their asses, Manticore'd been his enemy. But he thought maybe his face would help them get some information on the place.

He mentally sighed at himself. _Ok, I confess it: I'm bored._

"Something like that," he answered vaguely.

She let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding. Her lips twitched a little bit, as she said: "I never thought any of you had made it." Her voice cracked a little bit, and his usual devil-may-care attitude was flooded by guilt.

"Well," he carried on, his eyes on the floor. "We did. By the look of things," he pointed nonchalantly at her outfit, "you didn't."

452's face hardened. "No. But it's better like this. I wasn't exposed to the filth and degradation of this world," she sneered.

He grinned at the irony of those exact words being spat at him. The words were too familiar, they had been imprinted into his brain for too long. "Gotta tell you though, I wouldn't describe this world as filthy and degrading—well, no, it is kinda filthy and degrading, but it does have its perks."

"Really? Like what?" she questioned sardonically.

"Like… girls," he smirked. "Sex… Beer! Alcohol's a nice perk. Uhm… oh! Free will, that's kinda good too."

452 rolled her eyes. She was above all those things.

"You can dismiss all I'm saying, for all I care. But let me tell you something," he said as he got closer to her, his eyes glued to her brown pools, an eyebrow slightly raised. "You would love the outside world, Maxie," he whispered sensually into her ear.

She shivered, and Alec smirked. Max had never actually done that before.

"What's 453 doing here?" Max's other self inquired, suddenly needing to change the subject. _No one has called me that in a long time. _

With his eyes still on hers, he answered: "She's not 453. She's… someone else."

"Someone else?"

"That's right," he dismissed her question, as he moved to stand next to one of the windows.

He stood there, deep in thought, not in the mood to keep playing with 452's mind anymore. He just hoped Max would get back soon, so they could attempt to go home. He would never admit this to Max but he was scared. As much as he liked to deny it, Seattle, Crash, Jam Pony, Josh, Cindy, Sketchy… everything and everyone had become something like a home to him, and he was afraid to loose that. His eyes began itching and he glanced at his watch, which read 3:15. He was tired, but he could go on like this for another solid 24 hours. He just hoped to be home and sleep in his own bed by that time.

Something caught his attention outside. He suddenly recognized three black military vehicles stopping at the Fogel Tower's entrance.

His head snapped back at 452, and his stare stayed on her as he informed Logan, "We've got company."

"What?" the older man said from his seat in front of his computer.

452 remained still, looking ahead, not flinching.

"Manticore's here," Alec growled. He blurred to where 452 was sitting and began stripping her burglar suit until he found what he had been looking for. A tracking device. "Shit." She looked up at him, her eyes conveying a mixture of guilt and pleasure for a job well-done.

"Logan, we've got to go," he ordered the man as he tossed 452 back onto the couch in a not very comfortable position and rushed to the bedroom. He took Logan's expensive sheets and ripped off two long pieces. He blindfolded her with one, and then placed a gag on her mouth using the other.

Logan was already deleting all his records from his computer data base when Alec entered the small room. He took his jacket and they got out of there.

The older man made his way to the elevator, but Alec stopped him midway and dragged him to the emergency stairs.

"They're on the elevator already," the X5 informed the other man as he nodded towards the small screen above the doors, which was currently indicating the elevator was moving up.

They went down the stairs and entered the floor below Logan's apartment. Alec knocked on the door to the left and waited for someone to open, getting his lock picks ready just in case. An old lady with big, thick glasses opened.

"Mr Cale?" she said in her quivering voice.

"Hi, Mrs. Distephano. Would you mind if we come in for a second?" Logan requested very politely.

She frowned confusedly and asked: "What?"

They didn't have time for this. They would reach Logan's apartment soon, and 452 would tell Manticore that they'd escaped. Alec opened the door completely and entered the lady's home without permission; Logan followed with an apologetic face as the X5 closed the door.

"What is going on?! Mr Cale! This is unacceptable!" the old lady squealed with an aggravated frown.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs Distephano. So, so sorry," he tried to apologize but he was shushed by Alec who was trying to listen to the soldiers reaching Logan's place.

He looked up, feeling the thumps and the crashing door. A couple of "**Clear!**"s and they reached the living room where 452 was tied up.

"We've gotta get out of here."

"But how?" Logan asked. "They are probably securing the emergency stairs and the elevator."

"True," the X5 answered, and fell silent, lost in thought. "We'll take the elevator."

"What? Didn't you hear what I just said? You agreed!"

"There won't be more than two soldiers on the elevator entrance. They think they took you by surprise and weren't expecting you to have some '**special**' assistance," Alec explained.

"This is a bad idea."

"Well, I could just leave you here and make my way out through the window."

Logan stared at Alec. "Okay. Elevator it is. But how are we going to do this? They'll stop us as soon as they take a look at us."

Alec thought about that. They didn't quite have the element of surprised, for Manticore knew Logan was in here and would at least try to escape. So how would they do this?

His eyes traveled to Mrs Distephano and he smiled at her with his most breathtaking smile.

* * *

Two soldiers stood next to the elevator doors that connected to the underground parking lot. The parking lot was a tricky place; it was too dark, too damp and too noisy. There were squeaking sounds coming from every direction, which was the reason the soldiers were deeply concentrated on their surroundings.

A melodic sound broke their concentration as the elevator door's opened widely. Both man reacted by instinct pointing their guns at whatever enemy was inside.

Their fearless enemy seemed to be an 80 something year old lady, with a disapproving frown adorning her wrinkled features. Wearing designer clothes, she walked down the elevator, and passed between them; they let out a sigh of relief. The one on the right never saw Alec coming. The X5 wrapped his arm around his neck, and turned so that he was able to kick the other one in the chest, sending him straight to the ground. Alec applied some pressure to the man's neck, compressing his upper airway. The man was already struggling to breath, his hand dropping the gun to hold Alec's arm, but it wasn't much help. Alec's training had been thorough, so Alec knew how to apply pressure so that his enemy would fell unconscious on the floor with no secondary effects. Maxie would be so proud of him, he thought sarcastically.

He felt the dead weight of the man as he passed out and let go of him, his body falling on the floor with a faint thumb.

The second man was standing up, while wincing as he tried to take a breath. Alec took that chance to blur toward him and take the gun from his hands, hitting him hard on the face with his powerful fist. Both soldiers lay unconscious on the floor in less than sixty seconds.

Logan stared in awe from the elevator entrance, as well as Mrs Distephano, who was watching from the distance.

Alec took the men's weapons and placed one of them next to his .45, pressed against his lower back. He gave the other one to Logan. As they approached Logan's Bessie, Alec grinned to the lady again and kissed her hand. She blushed.

"Thank you very much, Ester," Alec said seductively.

They left on Logan's Aztec as fast as they could, avoiding the military vehicles and leaving a quite flushed, grinning Mrs Distephano.

* * *

"Why did you attack Alec when you thought he was Ben?" Max asked, breaking the morose silence that had been surrounding them ever since they had left the abandoned house.

Seth took his time to answer this question, for it was a hard one.  
"When I found Ben it wasn't your typical high school reunion, you know? It was… complicated."

"He was killing people," Max added, knowing this was the fact Seth seemed reluctant to include.

He nodded, a special kind of darkness flooding his eyes as they stared ahead.

"Is it true? That Manticore took him?" she asked then.

"Yes," he answered after a moment. "He didn't want to, but I think it was for the best," he finished softly.

"I'm sure he's okay, Seth. I've been through reindocrination, and it's not all that it's cracked up to be, honestly," Max told him, a loop sided grin on her lips that didn't quite reach her eyes.

"You know? I kinda think it would be cool if all transgenics were running around in Seattle, like in your… home world." He sniggered. "It wouldn't be that bad… that lonely, y'know?"

She thought about it and decided Seth was right; having all these transgenics around was kind of nice most of the time. Max nodded as Seth's cell phone rang. She saw the word '_Loggie_' on the bright screen as he answered.

"Yeah."

_"Seth! We've got problems. Manticore's at my apartment."_

"What? Where are you?" he asked.

_"We're on the move. I don't think we'll be able to pass through the sector checkpoints,"_ the older man explained, his voice a bit agitated.

"Meet me at my place; we'll be there in less than an hour."

Seth disconnected the call, and the both of them blurred through the empty streets of Seattle.

* * *

The soldiers found 452 tied up on the couch, her eyes covered and a gag over her mouth. They released her immediately, and she jumped off of the couch, grabbing one of the soldier's radio.

"The target has escaped. I repeat, the target has escaped. Search the building. He's not alone, there's an X5 assisting him," she barked.

She threw the radio back at the soldier and took the gun from another one. Without saying another word she left the apartment, and took the stairs, searching every floor until she heard the voice of the Colonel calling her on the radio.

"They're gone," Colonel Lydecker informed his soldiers after finding the unconscious men on the parking lot.

452 blurred down the stairs, her patience to stand and wait for the elevator was gone. She reached the bottom floor in one minute and stood in front of the Colonel without any sign of agitation.

She could feel the disapproval in the Colonel's eyes but she didn't show any reaction to it.

"Sir, Cale was being assisted by an X5. By two, as a matter of fact," she informed him in her soldier voice.

"I thought so. 09ers. Were you able to recognize them?"

"Only one of them was an 09er, sir." Lydecker frowned. "One was 493, and the other one was 453."

It took the Colonel a few seconds to process this information and answer. "That's impossible."

"Sir, I'm %100 sure it was them," she stated again.

"That's impossible because 493 is going through recovery and reindocrination," he began. Her eyes snapped at the Colonel, not able to suppress the emotion filling them. "And 453 reported back to Manticore two days ago. They are both at Manticore."

Now she was the one frowning in confusion, remembering the words from who she had thought was Ben. _She's not 453. She's… someone else._

"But she had my face, sir," she insisted.

"We'll deal with that later. Now, we need to find Cale. What will his next move be?"

Though still confused by all this information and by the emotions surging through her, she answered, "Leave town."

"Exactly." He picked up his radio and started barking that all units get to the sector checkpoints and search the town for someone matching Cale's descriptions.

"452," he said as soon as he finished giving out the orders. "I want you out there. I want you to terminate your target and bring the X5s to me. Understood?"

"Yes, Sir!"

* * *

"We're not gonna make it out of the sector," Alec muttered as he bit his thumb nail. A couple of military convoys had passed them already, moving at high speed toward the sector checkpoints. Manticore was being too public about their mission. "What exactly did you do to piss them off like this?" Alec asked, not able to restrain his annoyance. The both hid inside Logan's vehicle, which was parked on a dark alley.

Manticore had always been pretty inconspicuous about their missions, killing targets in the silence and darkness of the night. Logan must have really pissed them off to have sent a trained assassin and then an entire army of soldiers to look for him all over town.

Logan frowned at him, Alec's annoyed tone starting to drive him crazy. He was about to answer when his cellphone rang.

_"Logan, put Alec on the phone," _Max voice said from the other end. He did as he was told.

"Hey, Maxie, where are you?"

_"Trapped in sector 3. There are Manticore soldiers on the check points."_

"Figures. Their little army vehicles are searching for Logan like crazy, probably us too."

_"Tell Logan Seth spoke with Asha. She'll be waiting for him at Crash; the S1W will hide him until this thing blows over."_

"Consider it done. Max, how much time do we have left?"

_"Less than two hours,"_ she answered looking at the timer.

"We've gotta find each other, Max." Less than two hours was not much. Knowing them, they would encounter more problems on the way, and that worried Alec. He worried about being left behind because Max had the timer, but for some reason he doubted she would slide without him. Which meant that if they ended up stuck in this Alternate Universe, she would, of course, blame him.

_"I know. Drop Logan at Crash and go straight to the Space Needle. You won't have any problems passing the check points by yourself,"_ she said, confident his transgenic abilities would help him avoid problems. Although knowing Alec, problems did have a tendency of finding him.

* * *

Asha made sure the S1W took Logan somewhere safe inside the Sector. Alec exchanged a few words with the blond girl, whose hair was longer in this universe, and they were all about Seth. Alec figured she and Seth were involved and it seemed serious, because the blue eyed girl seemed distressed over the news of Seth being in danger of going back to Manticore. She asked Alec to tell Seth to call her as soon as he was out of the woods, and Alec assured her that he would relay the message.

He had always liked Asha and he was happy she had finally found someone who cared about her, but he still couldn't help feeling the same thing he felt about Max's and Logan's relationship. One of these days, Seth's demons would punish him through her, which would not only hurt Seth but also Asha in the process.

Luckily, problems didn't find him on his way to the Space Needle. He crept the sector check point as easily as always, and made his way towards the tall building. It had taken him approximately one hour to get Logan safely to the S1W and then find his way to the Needle, but at the sight of it, his worry was quelled.

He looked at his watch as he walked up the stairs of the evicted building, graffiti sketches all over the walls. His watch read 5:06 am, and the cloudy skies were becoming of a lighter color as the sun got ready to come out.

As he reached the top, Alec spotted a dark female figure that was undoubtedly Max's, with her long dark hair swaying in the cold night's wind.

"Hey, Max," he announced, although he knew she had sensed him ever since he'd stepped into the upper floor of the building, since he hadn't even tried to hide his presence.

It was when she turned around to face him that his senses fully realized just who was in front of him.

"Hello, brother," she said with a sneer.

"Where is she?" he asked immediately, his thoughts on the possibility of 452 getting a hold of Max.

"Now, you don't really expect me to answer that, do you?"

He didn't answer, his eyes simply assessing her. She was a rock; her Manticore mask would not let him see any sort of emotion, no body language that might tell him if she was telling the truth or if she was bluffing.

He attempted to get one of the guns pressed against his lower back, but 452 had been expecting him to do that, so as fast as any X5 she drew her own gun. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. Drop them off the Needle," she ordered.

"Really? I could kill someone," he answered with large innocent eyes that were actually mocking her, his hands going up in a sign of defeat.

She shrugged nonchalantly, "I don't really care." She signaled him with the barrel of her gun to move toward the edge.

He took both guns and threw them, aiming for a garbage container 600 feet down, although if they encounter a strong wind, who knew where would they fall.

"You know, there's still something I can't understand," she began once he threw the weapons.

"And what's that?"

"Who you are. And who your little friend is," she stated coldly. "You see, it happens that both 493 and 453 are in Manticore as we speak, so it's becoming rather difficult for me to believe you're Ben. But, still, you just called me Max while you still thought I was the other one."

He stared at her without saying one word, his eyes big as he made use of his best innocently confused face. He wasn't expecting her to believe it, but he just wanted her to lose her temper.

"I used to be called Max, you know? Before the others left. You're not Ben, yet you seem to know a lot about him and me. So, I'll repeat the question in case you've forgotten it already: Who are you?"

"I'm your fairy godfather," he replied, mocking her; she released the lock on the gun. Alec shut up, knowing now that she was serious about shooting him, and he was in no position to ask otherwise. He was also strategically located in the worst point of the Needle; the edge of it was definitely not the right place to make fun of someone holding a gun aimed at you. "Thing is, you'll not believe who we are, so why bother?"

"You'll find out I've got a very open mind, so why don't you try me?" 452 replied, as Alec snorted, remembering her speech about the outside world.

"Me and Max come from an Alternate Universe. I'm 494, Alec, Ben's twin, and the one called Max is… you; she's 452. The reason we're here is due to a simple mistake we made while trying to get away from one of our enemies. White. Sandeman's son."

452 blinked, but her hand was still strong on her gun, which was still pointing at him. Never flinched, never shook. The hand of a true assassin.

"I guess my mind is not that open," she replied. Alec knew this was it. She would take a shot at him ad he would either die due to the impact or else fall off the Needle.

He heard the bang guns make when they are fired. He could even smell the powder, but he never felt the bullet reach his body. Instead, he saw 452 drop her gun to grab her shoulder. Behind her, Max and Seth stood, the man holding the gun Alec had thrown down the Space Needle.

Alec blurred to stand next to them, away from the edge.

Blood was gushing from the back of 452's shoulder where the bullet had hit her. Unfortunately, the injury had no exit hole, which meant it was still lodge in her arm. She turned around expecting to find only the girl with her face. Instead, she found that her duplicate was standing next to a brown haired stranger, who greeted her with a, "Hello, lil' sis."

* * *

They tied her to a very solid pipe inside. If she remembered correctly this used to be a very popular restaurant, but now it looked like any other building in this rotted city.

Alec looked for any other tracker device, but she wasn't carrying any.

452 snorted and shook her head.

"What's so funny?" Max asked. She had to constantly try and convince herself that this girl there wasn't her; she was someone else. Maybe another clone. She couldn't accept the fact that they had tamed her, turned her into their most achieved assassin, probably.

"This is like a freaking family reunion," 452 replied.

"Yeah, well, I'm not really into that whole family concept that seems to rule all your lives, so," Alec commented with a shrug.

"How 'bout you?" 452 said speaking directly to the man who had called her 'lil sis'. "Have you also come from another dimension or something?"

Max glared daggers at Alec for giving up important information to their enemy. "What?" he asked innocently. "I knew she wouldn't believe me. She still doesn't, or don't you recognize your own sarcasm?"

Max slapped him upside the head.

"Nope," Seth answered.

"So, who are you?" the fake-Max inquired.

"I'm Seth," he replied simply. The X5 was witness to the changes occurring on 452's face; all the sarcasm and hatred over being caught had been replaced by a blank stare.

"I'll never understand why you all left," she said after a while.

"You're right," Max answered her. "You'll never understand if you stay at Manticore."

Alec frowned at Max, though she couldn't see him since she was directing her full attention to 452. He knew what she was trying to do, but he knew she would not succeed. It hadn't worked with him when he was Manticore's loyal—-well, semi-loyal soldier, and it wouldn't work with 452.

"The outside is not as bad as they make it seem," Max carried on. "It can be a little frightening, but as long as you have someone to trust, it's okay."

He wasn't sure if Max was talking about Logan in her case or Seth in 452's case.

"So, you two are like each other's support system?" 452 asked sardonically, staring at Alec and Max.

"Something like that," Max answered to Alec's great surprise.

As Max kept talking to 452, trying with some pretty convincing arguments to convince her to leave Manticore, Alec asked Seth to join him at the stairs with a simple nod of his head.

Once they were out of ear reach, Alec said: "I spoke with Asha, and she asked me to tell you to call her as soon as you were out of the woods."

Seth looked down at his feet. It was hard to look at Alec in the face; memories of Ben's empty eyes as he'd fought him in the woods kept flashing through his mind. But there was also the fact that he had mentioned Asha. It had been hard speaking with her over the phone, but even harder when she had asked him to come back to her alive.

Alec saw this change in Seth and knew some of it had to do with his own face; it had had the same effect on Max for some time. But, apart from that, he was sure there was something between Asha and Seth he had not picked up.

"Thanks," Seth said about to go back to what used to be a restaurant.

Alec held his upper arm for a moment, enough for Seth to stop.

"This isn't really my business, and we don't know each other, really. But I do know Asha and she's a pretty awesome chick," Alec began, a bit uncomfortable due to the subject. He'd won Seth's full attention at least. "I take it by your reaction that you're worried about her safety... because she's close to you." Seth frowned at Alec; was he a psychic or something? "And you're right to be worried. But…" he then added, thinking about his relationship with Rachel, about Max's relationship with Logan, and even his relationship with Asha, a relationship that he'd never allowed himself to start. "If your feelings for her are **that** strong… get the hell away from here… with her. I do believe she's worth it."

Seth regarded Alec for a moment, and then he said, with a small smile on his face, "Thanks." His tone was much more earnest now.

"You should go now, actually," Alec added as a second thought.

"But—"

"Let **us** handle 452. If you stay and something goes south, you'll end up back at Manticore," he explained.

"She won't leave Manticore," Seth uttered, voicing what Alec had already figured out.

"No."

Seth nodded, and went back inside. He asked Max to step outside as Alec entered and sat down in front of 452.

Seth explained to Max that he should be going. He would leave town and, if he was able, the country.

"What about the things that tie you here? The girl?" she inquired.

"I'll take her with me. I'll take her somewhere safe. I know she'll come," he explained. "As for the other people… I'll miss them, but they'll be safer this way."

Max repeated his words inside her head. She envied him in a way. She knew this girl, whoever she was, would go with Seth to the end of the world if she loved him with the same intensity that he loved her. That's what a man in love would do to a girl.

With a big smile, she hugged him tight. "I'm so glad I got to know you," she whispered against his chest.

"Same here, Max. I missed you a lot," he said with a strangled voice.

Back inside, Alec sat in front of 452 and decided to share some of his wisdom in regards to Manticore with her.

"I used to be a good soldier, too, once upon a time, you know?" he began, his face hidden behind his mask, but this time there was no sarcasm as usual. 452 looked up at him. "They would punish me time and again, and I would still be their good soldier. But, you know what they did with that loyalty? They screwed over all of the things I believed in just 'cause their location had been compromised. They torched the place down, with everyone locked inside. Not such a nice place to live after all, huh?"

The man in front of her, either Ben or someone else, was talking nonsense. Manticore had never burnt down, but his set expression obliged her to defend the place that had created her, even though she knew deep inside he was right.

"We do our job, and if we can't do it, someone better must do it. It's all for the cause. It's our duty."

Alec nodded at her words, and he smirked at her. "Say that when you find yourself locked inside your cell, struggling to breath through all the smoke. You might come to actually believe it before chocking to death."

Alec got up and left the room, knowing Max had said goodbye to Seth already. Seth stretched out his arm and both men shook hands. _This Alec guy might not be as bad as I thought he was._

Seth was gone after that, leaving Max and Alec to talk.

"We should go, Max," he said to her.

"But what about her?" she asked, her eyes traveling to the closed door that led to what was left of the rotating restaurant.

Alec shook his head slowly, looking at her with nothing but truth in his eyes. "She won't come; she won't leave Manticore, 'cause she believes in Manticore, Max."

She looked down, her mind not ready to grasp the fact that he was right. She couldn't believe that if she had stayed, she would've been just another brainless soldier; she would have been able to take a life just to accomplish a single mission.

"That's not you, Max," he finally said, reading her like an open book. He wasn't sure how to console her; he'd known what Max believed in ever since he'd stepped into her cell. He could understand how this might wreck all those beliefs.

"No, it **is** me. And it's you, and it's everyone who stayed at Manticore." Max looked up at him with big, glassy eyes. She smiled, although it never reached her brown pools. "It's who we were meant to be, right?"

"I guess so," he whispered. They never went back to where 452 was tied up. Max never looked back as she walked down the stairs.

* * *

Max was the first to leave the building only to find at least ten soldiers aiming their guns at them.

The sun was beginning to leave its hideout, and millions of yellow sparkles surrounded them in the cold street.

Alec stopped dead in his tracks at the sight.

He assessed the scene in front of him, and found Seth being dragged unconscious into one of the vehicles. Max saw the same, and Alec had to grab her shoulder to stop her from getting killed. They also caught a glimpse of Colonel Lydecker, who stared at them with confused fascination.

"Up," Alec simply instructed Max, who followed Alec back inside in a blur as gunshots exploded all around them. Alec shot a few times down the stairs as the soldiers began to follow them, giving Max the opportunity to go first. He hit one of them in the side of the neck, and his corpse held back the rest for a moment.

They reached the restaurant but Alec didn't close the door just yet.

"Find something to cover the doors," he instructed Max, urgency in his voice. The doors weren't very big, but they weren't very strong either.

Alec shot a couple of times, obviously not hitting anything, for they had won some advantage over the ordinary soldiers. He saw one approaching and took a shot. The bullets hit the soldier on both legs, sending him down the stairs like the previous one.

Now, Alec closed the doors. He found the partially-mangled chain and untouched lock that someone had cut through in order to grant access to the Needle. He took his lock pick and picked on lock. The lock opened and, wrapping what was left of the chain on the door's handle, he closed it again. Max brought a couple of rotten tables, which they threw against the door, along some wooden boxes they had found.

452 stared with glee in her eyes as the other two transgenics waited for the soldiers to arrive to the top floor.

"See ya in Manticore," she told them, her hands over her head, tied to the pipe.

Both Max and Alec decided to ignore her.

"How much time do we have left?" he asked Max.

She took the timer, "Five minutes," she stated.

"Ok, I think we can hold that long," he said, and felt a tug on the door as the soldiers on the other side pushed.

"What about Seth? We can't leave him here!"

Alec stared at her for a moment, his eyebrows scrunched in the middle, thinking she must be crazy. "We can't stay, Max! **I** won't!" he told her, trying to make her see reason. "There's nothing we can do for him."

She knew he was right, but the feeling that she was doing something wrong would not leave her. It was her brother down there, after all. Then, she dug her hand into her jacket and found her cell phone. "D'you think these might work here?"

"Don't know, give it a try," he answered her, feeling the soldiers push at the doors again.

"There's nothing you can do about Seth. He's going back home, just like you!" 452 insisted, though she was being ignored by the other two again.

"No, no signal, nothing," Max said, putting it back inside her jacket.

Alec wasn't entirely sure what she needed a cell phone for but he had the impression it had something to do with Eyes Only. His phone wouldn't work just like hers. "Check her. She might have one," he then said, thinking 452 probably carried one to inform her mission status.

Max looked inside her burglar suit despite 452's resistance and found one. She smiled at Alec, and dialed Logan's cell phone number.

The moment he picked up, Max simply delivered the message 'cause they just didn't have time.

"Logan, it's Max. Manticore has Seth. Listen to me and listen to me carefully," she instructed, realizing that Logan was about to interrupt her. Max went onto the roof because she didn't want 452 to know exactly how much information Manticore's enemies had. "You'll find the necessary information to locate the Wyoming facility on VA documentation; they're running their budget through the VA's books. There's another one, the main one. That one is located an hour southwest of metropolitan Seattle. Find Zack, find the rest and give them this information. They'll know what to do with that. Just tell them **not** to strike the lab only. It went sideways in my world. Tell the rest Manticore has Ben and Seth. They probably have Brin too."

"Max--" Logan tried to argue, but Max interrupted him.

"Logan, you owe it to Seth. Just do it. Promise me you will," she finished, her voice a mere whisper.

She could here the door giving in. Alec came through the window, "Max! How much longer!"

"I promise you," Logan then said and she hung up.

"We're ready!" she informed him, as she got back inside seeing the timer had almost reached zero.

"Ready to see something spectacular?" he told 452, smirk in place.

She simple snorted and rolled her eyes, but her retort died on her lips as a swirl of green, blue and white beams appeared in front of her eyes.

"Nice meeting you," Alec said to 452 full of sarcasm, as Max walked through the wormhole. He heard a gunshot and knew the soldiers had opened the lock, but it didn't matter anymore. He walked through the wormhole after Max, hoping to arrive home.

TBC...

* * *

**A/N:** Comments are always appreciated!


	3. Chapter 2: The World Where Alec is the O

**Previously on Slide:**

Logan tells Max he might have found a man who could help them with the virus. He explains how he spoke with the scientist, how the man seemed to think he could find a cure, but he needs a sample of the virus in order to do so.

She stutters a "no problem" and assures Logan she will be on it tomorrow night.

"You ok?" Alec asks, as they walk down the steps of the Space Needle.

"Yeah."

"You sure?"

She sighs in annoyance. "Yes, Alec. I'm sure."

"Listen, I can see you're not ok… I mean you should be excited or have at least a small, almost invisible, smile on your face, but you don't."

Alex inexpertly writes a '_CHEER UP, MAXIE_' in yellow letters over the outer wall of the Space Needle.

"Max, you sure about this?" he asks before entering the building.

"Yeah."

Max knocks on a door with the inscription "Quinn Mallory".

"Dr Mallory? I'm here in behalf of Logan Cale."

"So, you must be the virus carrier," he says casually to Max, still looking apprehensive. "Should we start?" he stammers.

"You're not from Manticore," Alec states. Soldiers rush into the hall, blocking any exit they may have had.

"Who are you?" Max asks low but menacingly.

"A man came to me after work a few days ago. White, he said his name was. He said I had to pretend to be a doctor and get a blood sample from a woman that would be coming to see me. I asked why should I do it…" he gulps, feeling bile rising, as he pauses a moment, his eyes with unshed tears. "He said he had my wife, Wade. And he would kill her unless I did what he said."

"I can get you out of here," the scientist suddenly says.

"Why?" Max asks.

"Because I can't do this. Whatever happens tonight, I know I'm a dead man already, as well as my wife."

The scientist shows them a small, black device. On the front there's a dark grey button and what appears to be some sort of timer system.

"It's a Parallel Universe Transporting Device. P.U.T," the crazy haired man explains to them. "This device opens a 'door', a wormhole, to parallel universes. You can travel from world to world with this little thing. These other worlds might seem like this one, but they're not, there's always something different. The difference is either obvious, or it might be something small. But there's always something different. You just have to walk right through the wormhole," the scientist goes on. "See the red numbers? These indicate how long it'll take for another wormhole to be created. Remember that if you don't activate it when the clock hits zero, you'll be stuck there. Indefinitely."

All at once the hinges of the door separating them from White and his men gives.

"Max, we have to go," Alec yells, leaving no room for discussion. "Now!"

White enters the room just in time to see a bright light quickly disappear next to the dead body of Dr Mallory.

452 and 494 were no longer in the room.

**Chapter 2:****  
**

**Author**: Christique, featuring MeryKey

**Rated**: PG

**Summary**: Max and Alec hit a new world, where Alec is the only existing Male. He thinks this world is heaven to him. Will he ever learn the lesson?

* * *

**Chapter 2: The World Where Alec is the Only Male**

"_Ooof!_"

With a grunt, Alec landed hard on the solid metal of the Space Needle. He rubbed his bottom with one hand, pushed himself up off the ground with the other, and turned around to glare at the spot where the vortex was disappearing. The huge, swirling, bluish-green wormhole shrunk down to the size of a pinprick in midair before winking out of existence completely.

Inside the vortex, it really was pretty, if one could get over the whole inter-dimension traveling aspect of it. The tunnel looked like it was covered with a blanket of stars embedded in dark velvet and satin, and it swam by faster than even transgenic blurring abilities allowed. All in all, the experience of sliding between worlds was quite a dazzling head rush.

Alec had never before despised something so beautiful.

He shook his head wonderingly. "No matter how many times I see it, I'm never gonna get used to that thing..." he murmured to himself.

He finally spotted Max, and his lips parted in surprise. The woman was on her feet! Max noticed the look of slight indignation on his face and smiled. "Beginner's luck," she offered, knowing that the act itself was enough to upset him. Alec hated losing almost as much as she did.

Alec frowned. "That is _so _not fair."

Max shrugged nonchalantly. "That's life. Unfair."

Alec shook his head with a rueful smile. He paused thoughtfully and said, "You know… we made a hell of a team back there. We saved Logan from… you… and we even managed to give him instructions on how to take down Manticore and break out Seth and the others."

"Hey, whaddaya mean 'we'? That last phone call was all my idea," Max retorted.

"Huh, okay, fine. I concede… The preventive action was all you," he answered with an amused grin.

Max chuckled softly before her own grin faded away slowly. She looked around at what was left of the Space Needle and through the broken window glasses where the remains of Seattle were visible. Forcing down the beginnings of panic that resulted from that sight required all of her transgenic strength.

"This isn't home," Max muttered to herself so that Alec couldn't hear, brows knitted together in worry. Trying desperately to calm herself, she sighed and sat down by the edge, resting her chin on her knees.

Shrugging off initial confusion induced by Max's sudden mood swing, Alec glanced down at the small woman uncomfortably for a moment before joining her. He sat down without comment and the pair watched the Seattle skyline for long minutes in silence.

Alec had never been one for silence. "So… What's on your mind?"

Max turned her head to face Alec, her cheek resting on her knee. "Just that this kinda sucks, doncha' think?"

"What does?"

"_This_!" She lifted her head and spread her arms wide, gesturing to the world below them that wasn't theirs. "This mess we're in! How many worlds are we gonna hafta pass through before we get home?"

Alec stood up slowly. "What do you mean, Max?"

"Alec, you can't tell me you didn't notice this isn't our home."

He stood and ran a hand through his already mussed-up light-brown hair, uncomfortable under her intent gaze. "Well, maybe home will be the next portal. No reason to give up now. I mean, it can't be too much longer before we find it, right?"

Despite her desire to believe his words, she couldn't keep away the doomed feeling lingering in her mind and heart. The fact was, their only hope of escape finding Mallory, and so far, that search had found little, if any success. They hadn't even managed an area code, much less an address. She stood up suddenly and stared absently into the sky for a while with her arms crossed before turning to look him in the eye. "What if we never make it home?"

Alec shook his head. "Max, don't say that."

She continued as if he hadn't said anything. "What if we're doomed to jump dimensions 'til we go crazy, or die, or both? What if this," she spread a hand once more, "is our life?"

Alec's gaze never left Max's eyes as he closed the space between them. "We're gonna get home. We will. You hear me, Max?" She gave him a small nod. "Never doubt that." He paused awkwardly, looking uncomfortable, before he hesitantly offered a comforting smile. "We'll get through this. I promise," he murmured into the night.

Max nodded and then turned away from him. She hadn't been expecting to find comfort in Alec. Then again, she hadn't expected to fail in finding any useful clues of making it back for so long.

She squared her shoulders and looked out at the world again. Though she didn't like it any better this time around, they still had the same goal, doubles running around or not. "We need to see if Mallory's here. That's our only shot right now." Alec nodded in agreement. "So that means we've gotta get off this thing and prepare ourselves for whatever's down there," she continued with a nod toward the streets of Seattle.

"Yep." Alec walked over to the exit. He opened the door to the stairs and held it for Max. "Ladies first," he said with a gesture and a smirk. Max rolled her eyes and started down the stairs.

* * *

"So where do we start?" Alec asked as he clapped and rubbed his hands together eagerly.

"Let's try a phone book _before _someone has to state the obvious for us this time," Max replied blandly.

Alec shrugged. "Okay. …You wanna try Logan's place again?" he asked cautiously.

Max shot him a hard look. "Let's just look around for a phone book."

He nodded slowly. "So… you don't wanna see if we can find Logan here?"

She stopped walking and turned to face him. "I wanna see if we can find _Mallory _here, all right?"

Alec held up his hands defensively. "All right, all right. I guess we can try this apartment." They walked up to the first habitat they could find, and Alec firmly rapped his knuckles on the door three times. He turned to Max. "Here, let _me_ do the talking. I think I'd do a better job of being nice."

Max glared. "You think you're _nice_?"

"Hey, I always try to be nice to you, Max. Not that you ever notice..."

Max abruptly cut him off with a violent gesture and cocked her head to listen. An intent frown crept onto her face as she stared silently into space. Then, without warning, she crouched low and crept carefully around the corner framework of the place, pushing herself up against the side of the building to hide. Alec followed close behind her with confusion painting his face.

After a moment of standing pressed up against the siding in silent anticipation, Alec lowered his voice to a soft whisper. "What is it?"

"Shuttup," Max muttered back absently.

Alec frowned and listened, trying to look everywhere at once, until he could hear what they were listening for. _Footsteps..._

"...must get there soon, Sister. The Chieftess will be displeased if we are late."

"I know that, Gilda. The Chieftess has a temper that is truly legendary! We must make haste."

"Yes. We will gather up our Sisters and arrive together. It begins soon."

"I suppose we can bring along..."

As the footsteps and the voices faded away, Max and Alec shared a look of confusion and concern. They waited until the two women were completely out of hearing range before they dared to move, coming to a crouch on the balls of their feet.

"What was that all about? The _Chieftess_?"

Alec shrugged. "I dunno…" Then his face split into a roguish grin. "But the idea of attending a gathering of sisters sounds pretty good to me…"

Max frowned and swatted him on the head. "You idiot! We've gotta find Mallory, OK? That's our top priority!"

"OK, OK! Geez, you don't have to freak out on me!"

Max's glare lingered on him a moment longer before she scanned the area and cautiously rose from her crouch. The coast was clear, so she motioned for Alec to follow her.

The pair of transgenics walked along the deserted street in the direction of the two women. The women were easy to keep track of – they both wore sandals and strange cream-colored dresses of a coarse material, tied at the waist with a woven leather cord.

Also on their waists, though, were nasty-looking belt knives inside leather holsters. Bulging pockets carrying who-knew-what were attached to the holsters, and another strip of leather on their backs supported a slim but deadly spear.

More and more 'sisters' were seen as they went on, all dressed and armed in the same way and all joining the first two Max and Alec had been silently following. Just as Max was thinking about how difficult it would be to follow any longer without getting caught, they rounded a bend in the path and came to what must have been the 'gathering'.

They stood before what looked like the remains of a pre-Pulse baseball field, only the women here clearly had not maintained the structure very well. It resembled the Roman Coliseum more than the place where the Seattle ball team used to throw pitches. The walls had mostly crumbled, and the white lines had long since faded. The line in the dirt marking the diamond and the grass had blurred beyond recognition, and the grass itself had become overgrown after years of neglect.

The women gathered there didn't seem to mind at all, though, no matter how dreary their surroundings. They all wore the odd leather and cloth, and they all stood in a crowd, mingling and chatting in low voices so that Max and Alec seemed to be standing right outside of a gigantic beehive.

Without taking his eyes off of the strange gathering, Alec leaned closer to Max and murmured, "So… why are we following them again? Do you think they're hiding a phone book behind the animal skins?" He flashed her a charming smile as he finished.

Max rolled her eyes. "Isn't it obvious? No one was at that apartment. That side of town must be abandoned. And something tells me there are no books here, let alone one filled with names and numbers."

Alec's grin faded as he caught on to her dim view of his intelligence. His wounded pride made him defend weakly, "I figured it was abandoned."

Max rolled her eyes again, but remained silent as she continued to try and assess the situation as well as see how many other people were around.

Alec broke the silence, bored again. "Whaddaya think they're doing?"

Max shook her head slowly. "I don't know," she answered in a whisper.

Alec looked around at all the girls gathered there. A smile began to creep onto his face. "Y'know, Max, this could be a fun world. A guy could get used to this."

Max shot him a sidelong glare. "Well, fortunately for me, neither of us will be staying long enough to try."

Alec pursed his lips in annoyance at being shot down so easily.

"C'mon. It looks like they're not gonna be moving from this spot for a while, so we have time to explore." As she said this, Max stood to leave, pulling out the PUT device to see if they really _did _have time.

Alec looked from Max to the gathering and back again with puppy eyes. "Wait, where are we going?"

Max quickly scanned the time meter on the device. The red numbers said that they had nine hours before they had to activate the next wormhole, their shortest amount of time yet. Max nodded and tucked the PUT device back into her coat pocket. "To find some answers."

"We've gotta track down Mallory, but all the people we've seen so far were heading toward this dilapidated baseball stadium," she continued with a thoughtful frown.

Alec shrugged. "I was never a big fan of baseball anyways."

"But they said it was a gathering of _sisters_, so I guess the money question is…"

"…Where are all the guys," Alec finished.

"Right." Max looked over at him. "Think we can find a local willing to chat?"

Alec smirked at her. "With my charm and good looks, we can get anyone to chat with us."

Max shook her head and replied, "Let's hope that for once, you're right."

"I'm always right," Alec retorted with a smirk.

* * *

They found their way to the city streets, but Seattle looked like a ghost town. There was no activity anywhere. The gusting wind sent hollow roaring noises and whistles through open windows and carried bits of garbage rattling along empty streets. There were no cars, and there weren't even any people down on luck huddled around a flaming trashcan to warm their hands. The silence was almost oppressive.

"Hello?" Max called, and as soon as she did, she heard her own voice echoing back at her. The hollow noise reverberated through the abandoned roads and alleys before fading away into silence once more. She didn't want to admit it to Alec, but she couldn't help second-guessing herself. _If there was no one by the Needle, and there's no one here, where the heck is everybody? _It seemed highly unlikely that the entire population could sustain itself confined to the area by the stadium.

They walked around for a few more minutes meeting nothing. Alec turned to Max. "Listen, I think we should go back to the 'gathering' thingie and see what they're doing there. Obviously that's where they all are right now. It's not like we're accomplishing anything by wandering around in this empty rat-hole anyways."

_That's right, _Max thought to herself. Maybe this _was _where they lived, but with their luck, there was some special ceremony going on right when they needed to single someone out. Then again, it could work to their advantage. If everyone was gathering, that meant Mallory would be there as well. The only problem was singling him out amongst the 'sisters' and their doting leader.

"Yeah…" Max agreed. "Looks like we're gonna hafta get a sneak peek at this 'Chieftess' person."

"You seek the Chieftess?"

Max and Alec both spun around abruptly to face the direction of the voice. Stepping out of an unlit old coffee shop was…

"Asha?"

Max stared incredulously at the blonde woman emerging from the shadows. Alec's mouth hung open in shock. Asha wore the scratchy white cloth and leather slings and sandals, just like all of the other people they had seen. But she also carried a pistol holstered at her waist. Right now, she was looking at the two of them with a frown of confusion marring her brow.

She froze as her gaze rested on Max. A slight widening of her eyes and a straighter posture were the only outward signs of surprise she gave. An instant later, she was relaxed again and looked as if nothing had happened. It was all so fast that Max wondered if she'd just imagined it.

"How did you know my name? You are outlanders, yes?"

Max shook her head to clear the weirdness of the situation from it. She hadn't meant to blurt the woman's name out like that, but Asha's sudden presence was unsettling, if helpful. She hoped.

"We were told to come find you. So you're Asha?" Alec covered quickly. "Yeah, we… we're, uh, outlanders."

Asha nodded knowingly. "Yes. Your strange outfits say as much." Max bit back a smart-assed reply about Asha's own ridiculous wardrobe. "Yes, I am Asha. And you are…?"

"Max," she said quickly. "And this is—,"

"Alec." The transgenic male politely extended his hand and smiled.

Asha eyed him curiously. "You have an awfully deep voice, Alec. And a very… unique scent about you." She frowned. "You _are _a woman, aren't you?"

Alec's jaw dropped.

"Why would you say that?" Max blurted out in shocked confusion.

Asha turned to face Max. "Well, Max, there are no men left on this earth. Surely that is not news to you." Alec's eyes bulged.

"Right. No guys, of course," Max said casually, even though she was panicking inside. Through her rising panic, a strange thought gripped her. If there weren't any men on the entire planet… "So, uh, how do you… uh…," she started, unable to stop herself.

_Funny what the mind latches onto in times of crisis…_

At this question, Alec finally found his voice. "How do you ladies keep the human race alive and kicking? Last I checked, humans don't reproduce by budding." Max suppressed an annoyed groan at his bluntness.

"You truly do not know?" Asha asked incredulously.

Max shrugged and put on a tight smile. "Well, like we said, we're outsiders."

"Outlanders," Alec corrected quickly.

"Outlanders," Max agreed with an annoyed nod.

Asha eyed them curiously a moment longer before explaining. "Well, after the virus struck, we collected all the sperm cells we could from the males left in the world. They knew it was the only way to allow us to survive, so they did what they could."

Alec could only stare dumbly at Asha while Max tried to wrap her head around what the woman was talking about. One word in particular had her all hung up.

"'_The_ _virus'_?" Max asked thickly.

Asha nodded. "Yes, the terrible virus that left us women alone on this planet. It kills males at birth. For some reason, though, it has no effect on females. None that we've discovered over the years, anyway."

"So… you just keep… gigantic sperm banks…?" Max trailed lamely. Asha nodded again.

"Yes. And we built large facilities that specialize in sperm cloning, just in case we run low on our supply."

"So… you guys don't… I mean, you have no way of… You can't… uh…" The girls stared at Alec as he stammered uncomfortably. He cleared his throat roughly. "You never _get any?_"

Max's confused expression transformed into a withering glare. Asha just quirked an eyebrow.

Apparently gaining confidence, as well as ignoring Max's glare, Alec braved forward. "I mean, how do you live like that? You ladies get no pleasure out of life! You must be even more uptight than Maxie here! Well, I guess it would explain the spears…"

Max punched him hard on the shoulder, causing Alec to cut off with a sharp intake of breath. He turned to shoot her a sullen glare. "Whadja do _that _for?!"

"Can't you be serious for one second of your life? And _don't _call me _Maxie_!"

"I _was _being serious!"

"Yeah, right!"

A small cough from Asha interrupted the shouting match. "So you _are _male? That is truly incredible! No, it is impossible. If the virus doesn't strike at birth, it strikes later in life. The longest life recorded for a male on this earth since the dreadful virus began is three years. No male has lived past three years old. _All _are struck down."

Max and Alec shared an uneasy, wary look.

"And yet…" Asha trailed as she drew closer to Alec. Her eyes roved over his every feature as if trying to memorize them. "Your presence brings a strange… feeling… inside of me…" She reached up to touch his strong jaw line with the backs of her fingers. "One that no female presence has ever brought on…." Her eyes turned predatory.

Alec smirked down at her confidently. His eyes locked onto hers as he said, "If you'd like, I can prove my manhood to you." Asha grinned.

Max glared at the spectacle. "You've gotta be kidding, Alec. You can't take advantage of her like that. _Especially _not in front of _me_!"

Alec turned to grin at Max. "What's the matter, Max? Jealous?"

"NO," Max answered emphatically.

"And it's not 'taking advantage.' I don't exactly hear her complaining," he finished with a smug look.

Max stared. "Are you serious? I don't _exactly _think that she's ever been _hit on_, you big idiot!" she hissed angrily.

"Of course I'm not serious. Like you said, I can't be serious for one second of my life," Alec returned impudently in a flat tone.

"Ummm… Max? Alec?"

Asha had been standing next to Alec, gaze going back and forth between the pair, watching the childish exchange in irritation, arms crossed beneath her breasts. The transgenics stopped bickering and looked over at her now.

"Listen, you outlanders can stay here and argue all you'd like, but I really must be going. If you were truly sent to find me, the assembly must be starting soon, and it would not do well to interrupt the Chieftess by showing up late."

Max's face lit up at hearing this. "Hey, we'll come with you! We actually have a lot of questions that might be answered if we can talk to… the _Chieftess_," she said awkwardly, as if testing the word out in her mouth.

Alec joined in. "Yeah, like, say, am I the only guy you've ever seen? Any… _really old_ males been around?"

Asha looked at him strangely. "You, Alec, are the first and only male I've ever laid eyes on." She paused with a coy grin. "But you make me wish that the male half of the race hadn't died off."

"Oh, how romantic," Max mocked with a fake smile.

Asha turned to face her coldly. "Does that answer your questions? I hope so, because outlanders are forbidden to attend the assemblies."

"What?!" Max and Alec blurted out in unison.

"Whaddaya mean, 'forbidden'?" Max asked challengingly.

"Forbidden. Not allowed. The Chieftess will surely arrest you. If you are lucky, that is," Asha replied with a frosty expression.

Max shook her head with eyes squeezed shut in surrender. "Fine. Whatever. We don't need to stick around here, anyways."

"We, uh… we don't?" Alec asked, slightly taken aback.

Max opened her eyes and focused them, and her frustration, on Alec. "No, we don't! Mallory's no female! They haven't seen him! His presence would cause quite a commotion, don't you think? Hence, he isn't here. So let's get the hell outta here!"

Max took out the PUT device and checked the time meter before returning her gaze to Alec. "We've got just under 8 hours stuck here, so I say we go find ourselves a nice, quiet spot for a nap and wait it out!"

"Wait, why are you eager to leave? Don't you think this place merits some searching before we up and go? I mean, just because she says she hasn't seen him, it doesn't mean he isn't here."

"We need to find Mallory," said Max with the quickly dwindling patience of an adult talking to a slow-witted child.

"And that means we need to get some answers from this Chieftess. If anyone would know everyone in this city, it would be their leader, right?" asked Alec smoothly.

Max opened her mouth to respond, but found she couldn't argue with Alec's logic. She closed her mouth and thought about what he'd said with a frown. How could she be sure that this world's Asha was right, that she knew everyone in this city and didn't know Mallory? _How can I be sure she's telling the truth? _Alec was right. They had to search deeper.

She hated it when he was right.

Max's thoughts were cut short by Asha's annoyed voice interrupting.

"Well, you outlanders do what you must. _I_ must be going." With that, Asha turned on her heel and strode off quickly toward the assembly.

Max and Alec stared at her retreating back. They glanced at each other and nodded in silent agreement before creeping after her.

* * *

Asha unwittingly led them back to the assembly, and Max and Alec did their best to stay out of sight while peering in to watch once they reached their destination.

Alec once again took the opportunity to glance around at all of the females there. Something about knowing that he was the only male in the whole world messed with his head. Thinking with his Y chromosome, he scanned the crowd with the words "potential" and "ripe" flashing through his mind inappropriately.

He wore what Max could only think to describe as the "guy look," all cocky smugness and filthy suggestions. She shot him a disgusted sidelong glare and tried to keep herself from strangling him on the spot. They were supposed to be looking for the leader! Max withheld her anger as long as she could, which was about 10 seconds. She reached over to flick his temple hard, enjoying the sound it made when their bones connected. He spun to face her at the gesture. "What?"

"Pay attention! And quit drooling. It's not gonna score you any points with all of the _virgins _you've been ogling so ravenously!" she hissed at him quietly.

Infuriatingly enough, Alec seemed to be amused at her reaction instead of properly abashed, like he _should_ have been at his offensive behavior. Max nearly ground her teeth in frustration. "Don't worry, Max. The only scorecard I keep is yours." He punctuated the statement with a smirk. His hazel eyes burned directly into Max's.

Max suddenly regretted being in hiding. She wanted nothing more than to knock some sense into him and quite literally kick his ass. She didn't have much practice in holding her temper around him, and so she was finding difficulty coming up with a _quiet _response.

Just when Max thought that she couldn't take his heated stare any more and opened her mouth to deliver a biting response, Alec turned away and began to speak while he scanned the crowd again. "Besides, I'm just enjoying the view. I'd never mix myself up in anything like that."

Max scoffed at his denial. "What, a one-night-stand that you'd get away with, zero complications?" she asked in open disbelief. "Since when?"

Alec pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes as he contemplated his answer. "Since… all right, fine. I guess I'm just not in the mood."

Max surprisingly smiled at the statement. "Figures, now that you've got your pick of the flock. You are such a guy."

He gave her a look that read 'what?' but said nothing more for a while, and instead averted his attention back to the strange gathering of women. His sights were suddenly taken by one woman in particular, a rather scrawny one with intensely blue eyes hidden beneath a pair of glasses that caught the sunlight and returned it with a vengeance. The spear looked ridiculous on her back, especially around several, much bulkier women armed in the same way.

Alec suppressed a shudder. "Kinda makes ya wonder who donated all the sperm, eh?" He chuckled and looked over at Max. She was staring straight ahead with wide eyes.

"Max?"

His smile slipped when she still didn't answer. "Max." Alec followed her gaze and found the source of her lack of responsiveness.

Original Cindy stood on the pitcher's mound, a spear taller than a person held in one hand while the other rested with attitude on her hip. Her jaw jutted out with a look of authority as she examined the girls gathered there. Then suddenly, she opened her mouth and spoke in a loud and formal voice, "She comes."

As if the two words were a signal, the entire crowd turned as one to face the pitcher's mound. Two rows of sentry women, each big and burly enough to be a man, marched onto the mound and then scattered to circle it, revealing…

"All hail! All hail! She comes! She comes!

The chants came from all sides, and spears were raised with each cry. Those without spears shook fists, and everyone had their gazes fixed upon the raised mound in the center of the field.

Max's mouth fell open as she watched herself step up onto the mound and thrust the deadly blade of a gilded and heavily ornamented spear into it. The crowd abruptly fell silent as if on command.

'Max' wore all leather, none of the scratchy white cloth, and there wasn't much leather at that. Alec took note of this detail, and his brow climbed nearly to his hairline. He swallowed hard and scrubbed a hand quickly through his already mussed-up light brown hair.

"Alec, I think I'm the Chieftess!" Max whispered fiercely in a panic. Alec nodded dumbly.

Max's eyes bulged when she finally noticed all of the runes on the cheeks, arms, shoulders, legs, chest, and smooth belly of the girl. It was all she could do not to gasp aloud in shock. Max herself didn't have anything close to that amount of runes. The Max of this world was almost completely covered with them! _Maybe that's why she's cool with not wearing any actual _clothes_!_

"I've got a ton of runes…" Max said softly to herself.

"You do? Wait, there's more?" Alec asked, turning to give Max a concerned once-over. "Where?" His fingers crept toward her shirt, threatening to lift it a little.

Max ripped herself away from his touch and glared at him. "Not me, _me!_" she answered with a nod toward the scantily clad Max with the spear.

Alec followed her gaze and focused his eyes on the exposed skin, ignoring the thoughts it brought and the burning flush that crept into his cheeks. Sure enough, the caramel-colored skin was tattooed almost everywhere he looked. Precious few spots had no runes at all. One of those was the valley between her leather-clad breasts…

With a loud clearing of his throat, Alec tore his stare away and turned to face Max, who was glaring at him. The transgenic male prayed that she didn't notice the pink staining his cheeks. It wouldn't do well for her to read his thoughts now.

"Could you be any louder?! They could hear us!" Max whispered in an angry hiss. Alec almost sighed in relief.

She turned away from him to stare toward the rune-covered Max on the mound and spoke absently. "I need to get closer, see those runes."

"Here, Max, take my phone. You can get a snapshot of them," Alec offered, rustling through his leather jacket in search of his cell phone.

"Yeah… Thanks," Max said as she took the proffered phone. "Here, hold this for me," she added and handed him the PUT device. She turned to creep away.

A light touch on her shoulder stopped her mid-creep. Max looked from Alec's hand to his face slowly, suddenly tense.

"Why are you giving me the slidey-thing?" Alec asked seriously.

Max stared. "Y'know, in case things don't go according to plan," she answered vaguely.

Alec's face twisted in disbelief. "You want me to leave you here if something goes sideways?"

Max met his gaze calmly. "I want you to do what you have to do and not get your ass shot up doing it. The 'slidey-thing' might help with that."

"No, Max. I'm not gonna leave you here."

He wasn't going anywhere without her. Max could see that as she looked into his unwavering hazel eyes. She expected surprise, but the truth was, she didn't find it so hard to believe, and she couldn't help smiling as she looked into his determined stare.

The worry of him noticing her appreciation or approval quickly reminded her that this was no time to be paying attention to Alec's better qualities. "Do what you have to do," Max repeated before turning to leave once more.

She moved in silence, drawing no attention to herself as she stole away toward the pitcher's mound. Finally, she got close enough to see the runes without using her enhanced vision. Max carefully flipped the phone open and pressed the camera button. Immediately, the phone's background turned into a video camera, seeing what Max was. She zoomed in as much as the phone would allow…

"There is a man among us."

Max's eyes darted over to where Alec was crouched in alarm. His own eyes were rounded in shock and fear. He caught Max's gaze and motioned for her to get going. Then he started to back further into the shadows.

The murmur that followed the announcement made in Max's voice drowned out any noise she might have made scooting even closer. But the milling masses of women kept getting in the way of the camera, so Max couldn't find a good opportunity. When she finally got a good glimpse of the woman, she forgot about the picture as anger bubbled up inside her.

Standing next to the Amazonian Max was a smug-looking Asha. The woman had ratted them out! Max stopped herself from grinding her teeth in frustration. She'd deal with the blonde rodent later, she promised herself. For now, she had to take the damn picture and get back to Alec. They absolutely _had _to get out of there now!

She aimed the camera at her other self and waited until she had a clear shot. Finally, she found the moment and pressed the button that would allow her to capture the image forever.

Max's eyes widened in horror when the phone made a loud sound imitating a real camera as it took the picture. She looked down at the thing as if she'd been holding a bomb and then shot Alec an accusatory glance. Why didn't he warn her that it was going to be so noisy?

But Alec was surrounded by women with spears. In her panic, Max hadn't noticed them closing in around him. Her heart constricted in sudden fear for the male transgenic. He stood with hands held up in surrender, the PUT device poking out of his pocket. They held him at spear-point. Max told herself fiercely to calm down and get her head in the game, but the image of Alec being tortured by those… _Amazons!_… kept popping up sickeningly into her mind. _Focus, soldier! Get that picture!_

Max turned to face the Chieftess once more and found herself looking into the inquisitive eyes of the women starting to gather around her. Max saw that she was quickly being surrounded, and her panic mounted to a great crescendo. The Chieftess herself slowly approached the circle and gazed down at Max, brown eyes meeting their perfect match, widening in surprise before turning into a cold glare.

"She is the other outlander," the Chieftess said calmly. "And she mocks me," she added in an icy tone.

At that, the spears came out and directed themselves at Max. All traces of curiosity or uncertainty melted away into anger and hostility. _How am I mocking her? _Max thought indignantly.

"Take her to the prison," Max heard herself command. Her world went black as a scratchy blindfold was placed over her eyes.

"Hey!" Max shouted, unable to stop herself. "What the hell is that for?"

"Gag her, too. She even means to mock my voice!" Max's voice called in outraged command.

"I'll do a whole lot more than mo- " she began angrily before another scratchy cloth was shoved into her mouth. Max fought the impulse to throw up; it tasted like dried sweat and dirt. She tried to shout for Alec, but the only thing that came out was a garbled and muffled cry that sounded so pathetic that Max gave up. She wouldn't give these awful women the satisfaction of hearing her sound weak.

"You know where to take her," Max heard the Amazon version of herself say as she was roughly dragged forward.

_And I thought _I _was a bitch!_ Max thought angrily as she was prodded along.

**

* * *

  
**

Alec heard the low voices all around him fade away after he was forcibly seated on the ground and had his arms tied around a pole behind him. Footsteps made him stiffen before he felt hands reach around his face to untie the blindfold blocking his vision. When the cloth was removed, his eyes focused on the lovely face in front of him, framed with dark silky hair that hung to the waist.

The fact that her hair was too long and that her eyes were too cold stopped him from blurting her name out in surprise. Well, that and the vile cloth stuffed in his mouth. The thing had a nauseating taste that made Alec continually suppress the urge to ralph all over the place. _It's not Max, it's her evil twin._

The evil twin removed the nasty gag cloth at long last, and Alec turned his head to the side to spit several times once her hand was out of the way. When his head turned to face front again, though, it was grabbed by delicate hands. It was Alec's only warning before a pair of full lips collided with his hungrily.

He couldn't stop himself from responding with a fire. His thoughts escaped him as he took in the sweet taste of her lips. He sorely regretted not having the use of his hands, leaving him with an unfulfilled burning desire to pull her closer, feel her hot skin melt under his touch.

Abruptly she pulled away, seemingly breathless, and allowed a coy smile to touch her now slightly swollen lips. "I've never seen a man before, much less kissed one," Max said to him with that smile. She touched her lips gently with her fingertips and added, "And that was quite a first kiss."

"Should you need a second or third…" Alec blurted out with a smirk.

Her coy smile evaporated instantly. "You are not to speak of this," she commanded in a serious tone, ignoring his blatant innuendo. "Do you understand?"

Alec's smirk faltered a bit, but he nodded. "I never kiss and tell," he said confidently, before a thought came to him that for a moment made him want to evaporate into thin air. Max, not _this _one, but the _real _one, would kill him if she knew.

"That is good," her double said before she turned and walked away.

Alec stared after her in confusion and. _What did I just do?_ Though he hadn't had much time to think about a reaction, he was sure that Max wouldn't be so understanding once she found out. _She doesn't have to know_, he thought decisively, but that didn't make the worry inside him disappear.

While he considered how he was going to keep this from her, it occurred to him that he'd just kissed her double. _Is that what Max tastes like? _he couldn't help wondering, a thought that brought the image of Max glaring into his mind. _I've got to get out of here…_

_

* * *

  
_

Max grunted against her gag in protest at the rough treatment of her person. Was it really necessary to keep poking at her with those awful spears?

She felt herself being knocked down and dragged across the ground. "Hey!" she shouted in a gurgling cry through the foul gag. The only response was a shove that slammed her backside up against a thick wooden pole. Her hands were lifted above her head and tied around the pole behind her back. _This is not good…_

Abruptly, the blindfold was ripped away from her eyes, letting in sunlight with a blinding intensity. Max squinted at the silhouette of a person outlined in light in front of her. After a moment of blinking, her eyes adjusted…

…and widened as she realized who it was standing there. She heard a muffled voice escape from behind the rank cloth stuffed in her mouth, and then the gag was mercifully removed. Max spat repeatedly on the ground in front of her to get the dreadful taste out of her mouth, fighting her gag reflexes all the while. Then she turned back to look up at the person in her cell.

At seeing Original Cindy glare down at her, she felt a surge of relief that the cloth had muffled her yell. It wouldn't do well to have the woman asking her all sorts of questions, starting with, 'How do you know my name?'

"Aiight, imposter. You gon' tell Original Cindy what this bitch is," she began abruptly, holding up, to Max's horror, the PUT device.

_So much for avoiding questions…_

Max arranged her face into what she hoped was an innocent expression. She'd seen Alec do it often enough when _he_ was in trouble. "Wish I knew," she said with a shrug.

Cindy's glare deepened. Suddenly, Max found herself staring cross-eyed at a spear-point right in front of her nose. "I won't ask again."

_If I don't answer her, I'll be a transgenic shish kabob! _Shit_! _

Mind racing for an answer, Max swallowed. This was going to be awkward… "It's… a portal device. It's how Alec and I got here. …We're trying to get home, but we need to find the guy who made that thing so we can ask him how to use it." She looked Cindy right in the eye to let her know that she wasn't lying.

_Now would be a great time for lightning to strike, right inside this… _Jam Pony_?!_

For the first time, Max took in her surroundings. Yes, she was in the basement of her place of employment. The only thing missing was Normal and his "Bip bip bip!"-ing. _He'd freak if he saw this! _It was totally in ruins. The walls were chipped and dirty, a thick layer of dust coated the floor, and it stank of mildew. Naturally, there wasn't a single package to deliver.

_Guess that means there're no bikes upstairs for me to pedal my ass outta here._

"You think you're funny, outlander?" Cindy asked menacingly. "Fine. You don't wanna tell me the truth, you can answer to the Chieftess," she said as she turned to leave.

The door closed behind her, and Max looked around, not really seeing any of it. If Cindy had the PUT device, that meant she took it from Alec. So where was he? Max felt a rush of fear. What if they'd killed him? _Don't be stupid, Max. You saw how interested Asha was in him. They wouldn't immediately kill the only guy they've ever seen. _

But that begged another question: What _would _they do to the only guy they've ever seen? Max frowned at the thought. _He's probably somewhere enjoying himself right now while I'm chained to the wall like some prisoner…_

She shook her head to focus on coming up with a plan, like how to get the PUT device back from Original Cindy's evil, poke-happy twin.

* * *

Once the initial shock of kissing Max's double had worn off, Alec decided there was no reason for him to feel guilty. He didn't have much of a choice, and besides that, as he'd told the woman, he didn't plan on telling anyone, especially not Max.

In the meantime, he couldn't quite keep the grin from his face as he looked around at all of the women staring at him. During the short time since he'd been captured, a whole flock of the Amazons had decided to go look at "the male" just to see what one actually looked like. The looks he was getting ranged from the sort of face one would make at a carnie to coy smiles and wide eyes. These girls were fascinated by him! The transgenic knew lust when he saw it…

_I guess this isn't so bad…_

The whole crowd was abuzz with whispers, and every eye was trained on Alec. He somehow managed to pose even while tied to the pole. His grin caused a gasp from a few in the group, which only made it widen. _A guy could get used to this…_ Then again, he knew he was bound to get bored of their reactions sooner or later.

"Out, everyone! NOW!" boomed an assertive voice over the hushed chatter. The women quickly dispersed with lowered eyes, but not fear. It seemed they were used to these types of orders. The smile on Alec's face slid away at the change in audience. When he looked up and saw who had barked the order, he felt a surge of hope rise in him. However, at seeing the look on Cindy's face, that hope was promptly squashed.

He decided it would be a bad idea to say hi, or really to say anything at all, so he bit back the cheeky remark he'd had locked and loaded on the tip of his tongue. Original Cindy did _not _look happy.

"You outlanders just had to come an' make a scene…," she said sullenly. She straightened and placed a hand on her leather-clad hip while the other hand dangled the PUT device in front of him. "Since yo' smart-ass girlfriend didn't wanna answer, _you_ gon' tell Original Cindy what the hell this thing is." It was clear from her tone that that was not a request.

Alec swallowed hard. That meant Max was still alive. He frowned at realizing he'd been too busy enjoying the attentions of all of the other women to worry about her whereabouts and safety… "First, tell me where she is," he said firmly.

The slap that turned his head sideways would have hurt much more if he'd been a normal human being, but the shock of it caused his eyes to widen. Cindy's glare met him as she crouched around and got right in his face. "You don't call the shots here, _outlander_." She said the title like a swear word and even curled her lip upon saying it, as if it tasted bad in her mouth.

"Now. I'll ask you one – more – time," she continued fiercely. "What the _hell_ am I holding?"

Alec gave her a dark look through his lashes as his head hung low. "It looks like a remote control. You got a boob tube anywhere? My show's on in five minutes."

Cindy's glare deepened against Alec's belief that it was already as deep as it could go. He sincerely thought she was going to slap him again, and he braced himself for just that when she straightened and turned around without another word. As quickly as that, the room was empty and Alec was alone again.

He moved his jaw around, trying to shake off the pain of her slap the only way he could with his hands bound behind him. _I guess not _all _of the ladies here love me…_

_

* * *

  
_

Max looked up with a sudden alertness. She'd definitely just heard Cindy's voice yelling. It sounded like it had come from the floor above her…

She squinted at the ceiling, focusing all of her transgenic senses to pick up on everything they could. Cindy had yelled at a lot of people to get out. Did that mean Alec was up there? Her stare intensified at the thought. It was hard to tell whether the transgenic was really up there or not, since she couldn't see through the ceiling and sounds were muffled a floor away. _Damn shame Manticore couldn't splice me up with something useful like X-ray vision…_

…There it was! Max felt a glimmer of hope as she just barely made out a deep rumble that could only be a man's voice. Alec was most certainly the only person in the entire world who could produce a man's voice. Max strained to catch what he was saying, but she'd been lucky enough to hear the low vibrations, so deciphering words was impossible. She pursed her lips and gave up. Alec was alive. He was upstairs. _I'm gonna hafta bust us out._

Knowing that Alec wasn't going to be able to escape without her help made her determined to break free. She started rubbing the scratchy rope binding her hands against the pole up and down, causing some friction to begin heating the rope and pole. It was a long shot, hoping the rope would fray against the rust on the pole, but it was the only one Max could think of.

She knew the PUT device was slowly ticking down. Their hourglass was persistently draining of sand as they sat there as bound prisoners. She'd be damned if she was going to get stuck in this abominable place! _Why'd I let him talk me into staying here? _With a grunt, Max redoubled her efforts. The only sounds she let herself hear now were her forceful breathing and the scratching of rope on rust. _I'm gonna kick his ass! _she thought with a wave of anger, the emotion helping to give her more energy. _But I gotta save it first._

_

* * *

  
_

Alec's head jerked up at the sound of lazy, approaching footsteps. He saw Chieftess Max leaning casually against the doorway staring at him with hooded eyes. His own eyes instantly took on a guarded look that made Max smile mirthlessly.

"What's your name?"

Caution turned into confusion. "Why do you ask?" he said carefully. He thought for sure that Asha would have already passed on that information.

She smirked. "A pet should have a name. If you don't already have one, I'm sure I can come up with one," she added as her dark smile stretched. The look on her face made Alec's hackles rise.

"'Pet'?" he repeated with disgust coloring the edge in his voice.

"Of course! Why else do you think we've kept you here? You are to be property of the Chieftess. That is your purpose in life, since the gods miraculously spared you from the fate that meets all other men. It is a sign that you are divine indeed and are thus suitable only for the Chieftess." Max's eyes ran openly over his body and came to rest on his face once more, all with that same predatory smile that Asha had given him earlier.

"Lady, I know you like me and want me all to yourself, but there are lots of lonely women out there. I come offering some warm company, and it just wouldn't be fair of you to monopolize it," Alec answered with a shit-eating grin. It was the only way he could think to piss her off into not wanting to keep him as a _pet_. The very thought made his skin crawl…

A strange look crossed Max's features and was shaken off almost imperceptibly. Then she shot him a devilish grin and came closer. Before Alec could process what was happening, she had straddled his legs, kneeling inches from his face. "Warm company? Do tell…"

Alec felt his blood boil and start to head south as the girl who could have been Max's exact replica if not for the excess runes lean in and capture his lips with hers, pressing her body against his bound one. Alec leaned into her kiss as his mind clouded over for a moment before he realized what he was doing. Abruptly, he turned his head sideways to break the kiss. Max's hazy eyes came back into focus after a few seconds and bore angrily into his.

"Why did you stop? C'mon, pet, you know you enjoyed that," she added with a coy smile. She pressed a hand to his chest, causing him to flinch. "Your heart is beating erratically, and your breathing is heavy. You can't hide your desire, pet."

Alec frowned at her. "Yeah, and being called 'pet' just turns me on that much more," he said sarcastically.

The woman glared. "I could call you something else if you obeyed and gave me your name," she retorted.

"Forget it," he said firmly as he turned his head to avoid looking at her.

Alec felt her approaching and clenched his hands on the other side of the pole, keeping his gaze steady and staring stubbornly at a noticeably loose brick in the crumbling wall as if it would burst into flames if he concentrated hard enough. Her breath tickled his taut neck as she spoke.

"Fine. But you must remember not to utter a single word of this to anyone. Are we clear?"

"Crystal," Alec said simply, praying his Manticore mask was hiding his surprised confusion. If he was supposed to be her pet, why was it so important that no one knew about it? She was the Chieftess; she could do anything she damn well pleased in this world, right? The women here practically worshipped her, and he was sure that if a claim was staked on him openly none of the other women would try anything to contest or compromise it. He might as well have been branded. _Like a cow… I'm just meat to these girls…_

The high and mighty Chieftess slid away and left him alone with his confusion once again. "Damnit," he muttered softly before saying for the second time, "I gotta get outta here…"

* * *

The sun had stopped shining in her eyes. Max took note of this as she continued to struggle with her ropes. A wave of panic swept over her at the realization that night had fallen. They were quickly running out of time.

The sound of the door opening made her stop what she was doing immediately. She didn't think she'd worn through enough of the rope to be able to break it just yet, especially with her lack of strength brought on by hunger, but there was no sense in drawing attention to the fact that she was attempting to escape. Her arms were tired…

Cindy was back, it seemed. Max noticed that her hands were empty. Where was the PUT device? It wasn't like the woman had pockets in her skimpy Amazon uniform. Her brow furrowed in furious thinking and worry, but Cindy was too far away still to see her face.

Suddenly, Max's stomach rumbled loudly. She glanced down at it in surprise as an idea came to her. "What's a girl gotta do to get some grub around here?" she called out to her captor.

Cindy stiffened at the tone she'd used to address her, but she turned right around and left the way she'd come without a backward glance. Max smiled and resumed her attempts to fray the rope, despite the protest of every muscle in her arms and back.

After a few moments, the dark woman returned with a tray of hot food. Max didn't have to hear her steps or the door opening again to know she was coming; her nose took deep pulls of the air without her notice, and her mouth watered at what it picked up. Her stomach gave its loud greeting once more to Cindy as she entered. Max gave her arms a rest as soon as the door opened. _Damn, I really must be hungry! Stupid metabolism…_

Cindy set the tray in Max's lap and pulled up a crate to sit on. Max looked from the tray to Cindy and back again. She stared for a moment, looking as pitiful as she could manage. "Um…. Is this some new kind of torture? Set the food there just out of reach as the prisoner starves to death?"

Cindy looked up at her in surprise. She seemed to have been daydreaming. "What'a you talkin' 'bout?"

Max nodded to the tray on her lap and wiggled her fingers lamely. "How's a girl supposed to eat if she can't use her hands?" After a pause, she added, "A little help?"

Cindy finally understood and rolled her eyes with a loud sigh. "Fine. I guess you're right." To Max's dismay, the woman didn't reach for the knife in her leather belt to cut the ropes away. Instead, Max found herself being spoon-fed some hot beef stew.

_Damnit! I wanted her to cut me loose, not feed me like a friggin' baby!_ She couldn't argue, though. She really did need the nourishment right then, and it seemed that was the only way she was going to get it. Max tried to hide her indignation and swallowed her pride in another spoonful of stew.

After she'd eaten everything on the tray, she felt like she could've consumed it all again and still have room for more, but instead of complaining, she decided to do some recon. The PUT device absolutely _had_ to be found!

"Thought you said the Chieftess was gonna deal with me," Max stated casually.

"I did. And she will. Just not now. She's busy with the other prisoner," Cindy said with a curl to her lip. Max recognized disgust on her face immediately.

"You really don't like him, huh?" she prodded.

Cindy turned to face her squarely. "Just 'cuz _you _sleepin' wit him don't mean that every other girl has to," she said bluntly.

Max ignored the crude accusation along with her amazement at Cindy's knowledge of slang terms for sex in a sexless world. "Seems like they really want to, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Cindy answered disgustedly. "We were just fine until you outlanders showed up," she added in a bitter voice. "Ain't no wise-ass _man_ to put their panties in a bunch…"

Max nodded understandingly. "Alec's quite the charmer." She immediately cringed inside at the statement. _I can't believe I just said that. God, if he ever hears about this, I'll throw myself off the Space Needle… _After a pause, she continued. "It surprises me, though. Wherever we go, the girls all seem gaga over him. Why aren't you?" She knew the answer, of course. If she was truly Original Cindy, she played for the all-girl team.

The look on OC's face would normally elicit a laugh out of Max, but today, it read hope. "Are you kiddin' me? Original Cindy ain't impressed by some… three-legged _dog_."

"But I guess no one else feels that way, huh?" Max pushed her further.

"Wha'chu tryin' ta say, _outlander_?" Cindy asked, clearly getting agitated.

"I just noticed some things, that's all…" Max trailed, purposefully cryptic.

Original Cindy's eyes narrowed. "What kind of things?"

"I know him real well, you know," Max began. "He doesn't really care about any of those girls. Just uses them for their bodies and then leaves 'em with a broken heart."

Original Cindy almost sneered. "You sound like a scorned lover."

Max blushed out of surprise but quickly went back to her plan. "No. See maybe _your _leader is foolish enough to fall trap to his… 'charm', but I've got a head on my shoulders. I'm only with him because of that device."

"Device…?" Cindy trailed before her eyes widened as she remembered. "The strange box you lied to me about. What does it do?"

Max knew the plan was rash and something that Alec was more likely to do, but given the short time that they had on this World, she didn't think she had any other options. "It's what brought us here. Do you really think he's that special? Like he's immune and has been in hiding? You said it yourself, we don't belong here."

"What is the source of its power?" Cindy asked.

"It's the box!" Max answered immediately, irritated. "But here's the problem. If that guy and I aren't together before the time runs out, we'll be stuck here forever."

Cindy shrugged. "Fine with me, my Chieftess is no fool like you _rudely _tried to say. She'll be bored with him soon and then he can go on being our slave."

Max tried to act more like Alec, pulling out a cocky grin. "Are you sure about that? Didn't you say your Chieftess was gonna come talk to me? What happened? Was she too distracted?"

All the questions were increasing Original Cindy's irritation and she left immediately.

The smile immediately fell from Max's face once she was alone again. She used her transgenic speed to rub at the ropes and continue to try and escape. _I can't count on her insecurities_, she thought with a worry. _I hope Alec is having better luck than me…_

_

* * *

  
_

Alec tried to stay awake as time passed. He felt that now more than ever he needed to be on full alert. There was no telling what these women would do if they unsuspectingly approached him. He wondered if he still had any chance of charming his way to escape.

Approaching footsteps made his body stiffen as he prepared for the worst.

He was immediately relieved to see who it was. Until he realized that it wasn't going to help him escape.

"Your girlfriend tells me you like to use women," Original Cindy said angrily. "And I don't like having to _wait _to come see you alone. You need to get out of this land before you cause any more trouble."

Alec felt relief again as he took in her words. _She's going to help me escape! _"Yes!" he agreed eagerly, "That's a brilliant idea. I wouldn't want you to have any more trouble. So maybe I should leave."

"Yes," Cindy agreed, pulling out the PUT device.

Alec didn't think his grin could grow any wider, but the site of the tool to his escape brought just that. "How'd you know?" he asked before his thoughts settled on Max. "Where is she? Is she coming soon?"

Cindy's smile suddenly looked less generous and kind to Alec. He started wondering if she was really going to help them or not. Then a quiet panic started dancing through him as his eyes rolled over the time left – twenty minutes and ticking.

"Did you really think I would let you go and give you the magic box?" she said finally with a slight laugh. "Original Cindy's gonna smash this magic box first, and then your insulting face!"

"Woah wait, my face has been called many things, but 'insulting'? Can't we talk about this first? I never knew you were so violent!"

"I don't think so," she said, raising the PUT device above her head and about to throw it as hard as she could into the ground.

But just on the nick of time, an olive tanned hand gripped OC's arm. OC looked over her shoulder in surprise, meeting the big, dark eyes of her Chieftess only to soon realize it was not her Chieftess at all. It was the mocking outlander.

Alec sighed in relief when Max's face came into view. He could see her face was hard in concentration, in combat mode. In a matter of seconds, his travel companion spun OC around, her balance failing her, which Max took advantage of. Max punched her old friend's jaw, rendering her unconscious, but not before she had mastered to yelled '_guards_!'.

Max couldn't help blurting a guilty '_sorry_' to the sleeping figure of her best friend, as she picked up the PUT device, which laid on the limp grip of OC's hand. Her eyes immediately fell on Alec once she stood up.

"Well, that's got to be the dumbest plan in history," she heard Alec mutter. She stopped short and narrowed her at him, still tied up to a pole.

"Excuse me?"

"Did you really think telling OC that the PUT would get rid of me was the best idea? The woman clearly has it against me… here and everywhere!" he spat.

"It was a good idea! Not my fault you don't know how to make it work for you advantage, which you're usually good at when it comes to get into some skank's panties!"

Alec was about to argue with her that her conception of "good idea" was slightly distorted when they heard footsteps hurrying their way.

"What's going on?" a short, yet muscular blonde demanded at the sight of Original Cindy's unconscious body lying on the floor.

Max took her down easily, but that didn't stop two more guards showing up.

"Yeah, _really_ good idea!" said Alec, as he fought against the ropes holding him against the pole.

Max struggled with a tall dark haired Amazon; the woman's arm was tightly wrapped around Max's neck as the other approached her, some sort of slim club in her hands.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Max spat, although the choke-hold around her throat was making it difficult for any sound to come out right. "But from what I heard," she continued before kicking the approaching red-haired Amazon on the chest. She used the strength of the kick to push back the one holding her by the neck and wiggled out of her grip. "You were enjoying yourself in all your man glory!"

Then, Max grabbed the dark-haired woman by the arm and spun her in the air, landing on her back with loud smack.

"Enjoying myself?! Right! I was being manhandled sounds more likely!"

Max went for the one with the club, although the weapon now laying on the floor, feet away from its intended owner.

"Oh, please! Like you didn't enjoy all the attention!" she continued arguing as she dodged a kick from the red-head.

"It's not that entertaining when people only see you a piece of ass, you know?" he replied.

"Oh, is that right? 'Cause here I was, thinking treating people like a piece of ass was just another day in the office to you," Max countered back sarcastically.

"Well, it stops being fun when they refer to you as a pretty faced 'pet'. It's… degrading."

Max finally put the red-haired Amazon down, making that 4 unconscious Amazon women on the floor. It was getting crowded.

"Wait, let me get this straight," Max said then, flipping her hair over her shoulder, sticking her right hip out. "Alec, the King of empty and meaningless relationships, is upset because he's wanted only for his looks?"

"Well, I think it was something _else_ of mine they were interested in, but I'm glad you notice my good looks, Max."

She rolled his eyes at him, bending down to take the knife wrapped around OC's leg. Max cut the ropes tying Alec to the pole and set him free.

"I hope you learn something from this. If we don't get killed first, that is."

They could hear more footsteps. "We have to go," Alec said then, stating the obvious, as Max handed the egg timer to him.

They were able to outrun them all; dodging rocks and arrows on their way out of town. All except for the Chieftess. Amazon Max.

They had barely 4 minutes before they would have to push the button to open a new worm hole that would, hopefully, take them home. Just then Max was yanked back by her hair; she lost her balance, falling flat on her ass, but blurred up on her feet immediately. Her clone, the Chieftess, held a very sharp knife against her neck.

Alec assessed the situation. They wouldn't be able to blur out of this one. The Chieftess had their same abilities.

"Ok, how 'bout we all calm down, for a minute… or four?" he uttered in his most persuasive tone, his hands held up high in sign of surrender.

"She mocks and steals from me," the Chieftess accused with a pointed nudge against Max's neck.

Alec frowned but soon answered. "Who said she stole from you?" He had realized as soon as he understood the Chieftess was claiming ownership of him that his mouth would be the only thing that could get them out of this alive.

It was the Chieftess' turn to frown but then her face turned to complete delight when he bowed down in front of her.

"I am yours. And this is my present for you." Alec looked at Max, who, in turn, looked confused. "We can get rid of the offending outlander now. No witnesses. And I'll be completely yours."

The Chieftess' hand held the knife firmly against Max, so Alec pushed it. He stood up and was soon right in front of the Chieftess. His hazel eyes never left her deep brown ones; the intensity in them making her knees turn to jell-o. A long moment had passed and Alec's anxiety was well hidden. They were running out of time.

He slowly reached for her cheek and softly caressed it. He leaned forward, ignoring Max's eye-roll, and it was then, mere inches away from her soft, pouty lips, that the Chieftess' breathing hitched, her hold on the knife loosened infinitesimally and her eyelids dropped on their own accord.

And it was then that Max took hold of the situation.

Within seconds, it was her hand holding the knife against the Chieftess' neck. Alec backed up and her eyes snapped open. He couldn't shake the guilt at the betrayed look in her eyes. They were Max's eyes, after all. And he'd seen that look before.

"Don't move," Max ordered. She backed up until she was standing right next to Alec. "Turn around." They would have to do this fast. They had barely a minute. Her double did as she was told quietly, but knowing herself, Max knew her other self was probably livid at the moment. "Do you have the PUT?" she asked Alec.

"Out and ready," he answered pulling it up so she could see it. They backed up slowly, her eyes trained on her double. When they were a few feet from her, they blurred the opposite way, feeling rather than hearing the Chieftess follow after them at the same speed.

The timer hit zero and Alec pushed the red button. Max turned at that exact same second and threw the knife at her double, aiming at her thigh. It hit its target just as they both ran into the warm hole right in front of them, leaving the Chieftess on the floor pressing her hands against the bleeding wound and looking up at the magnificent lights that soon disappeared along with the outlanders that had come to disturbed their peace. It would be many years before anyone forgot about the outlanders; about the only living male that anyone had ever seen.

TBC

* * *

Check the next post for an announcement. Thanks!! MK.-


	4. Chapter 3: Supalternatural

**Previously in Slide:**

Logan tells Max he might have found a man who could help them with the virus. He explains how he spoke with the scientist, how the man seemed to think he could find a cure, but he needs a sample of the virus in order to do so.  
She stutters a "no problem" and assures Logan she will be on it tomorrow night.

"You ok?" Alec asks, as they walk down the steps of the Space Needle.  
"Yeah."  
"You sure?"  
She sighs in annoyance. "Yes, Alec. I'm sure."  
"Listen, I can see you're not ok… I mean you should be excited or have at least a small, almost invisible, smile on your face, but you don't."  
Alex inexpertly writes a 'CHEER UP, MAXIE' in yellow letters over the outer wall of the Space Needle.

"Max, you sure about this?" he asks before entering the building.  
"Yeah."

Max knocks on a door with the inscription "Quinn Mallory".  
"Dr Mallory? I'm here in behalf of Logan Cale."  
"So, you must be the virus carrier," he says casually to Max, still looking apprehensive. "Should we start?" he stammers.

"You're not from Manticore," Alec states. Soldiers rush into the hall, blocking any exit they may have had.  
"Who are you?" Max asks low but menacingly.  
"A man came to me after work a few days ago. White, he said his name was. He said I had to pretend to be a doctor and get a blood sample from a woman that would be coming to see me. I asked why should I do it…" he gulps, feeling bile rising, as he pauses a moment, his eyes with unshed tears. "He said he had my wife, Wade. And he would kill her unless I did what he said."

"I can get you out of here," the scientist suddenly says.  
"Why?" Max asks.  
"Because I can't do this. Whatever happens tonight, I know I'm a dead man already, as well as my wife."  
The scientist shows them a small, black device. On the front there's a dark grey button and what appears to be some sort of timer system.

"It's a Parallel Universe Transporting Device. P.U.T," the crazy haired man explains to them. "This device opens a 'door', a wormhole, to parallel universes. You can travel from world to world with this little thing. These other worlds might seem like this one, but they're not, there's always something different. The difference is either obvious, or it might be something small. But there's always something different. You just have to walk right through the wormhole," the scientist goes on. "See the red numbers? These indicate how long it'll take for another wormhole to be created. Remember that if you don't activate it when the clock hits zero, you'll be stuck there. Indefinitely."

All at once the hinges of the door separating them from White and his men gives.  
"Max, we have to go," Alec yells, leaving no room for discussion. "Now!"

White enters the room just in time to see a bright light quickly disappear next to the dead body of Dr Mallory.

452 and 494 were no longer in the room.

**Chapter 3**

**Author**: Roonblah

**Rated**: PG-13

**Summary**: Max and Alec arrive to a world hard to imagine... even for a genetically engineered super soldier.

* * *

**Chapter 3: Supalternatural**

The kaleidoscopic ocean stopped twirling, but sadly, that swirling would continue in the stomach for a while after. A pity it still seemed to increase hunger.

The sudden absence of light and warmth announced what could be an unexpectedly cold summer's night.

Or winter.

When one stepped from parallel universe to parallel universe, one had to make these little adjustments.

A loud, bungled clatter preceded a blur of color and another thump. Max Guevera looked down her nose at the source of the commotion. Unable to decide whether to glare at an overturned, and still moving, wooden pail, or to grimace like a toddler trying to be brave, Alec McDowell appeared to be doing push-ups. The reason for his discomfort was underneath his right hand.

Max stifled a laugh. Barely. Her delicate nose tried to ignore the smell that had suddenly increased in intensity.

"Nice use of cat reflexes there, Farmer Brown."

Alec gave a mumble she couldn't understand as he carefully lifted himself back to his feet. For his sake, his muttering had better not be cuss words. He held his hand in front of him as far away as it was physically possible to do. His palm seemed black and flaky.

"Who leaves a cow in the middle of nowhere?" he demanded.

"Well, technically, the cow is not here, only her little gift to you. In this barn. That we are illegally trespassing in."

Max frowned as she took in the dismally rural air of their surroundings. She took the timer out of her jacket pocket. Just over two days, but that was not what concerned her. No matter what world they traveled to, they would always appear in Seattle geographically close to where they left the previous world. If they were now in the sticks, it was possible that Quinn Mallory wouldn't be here or be technically advanced enough to help them get out of this pickle. Great.

"What?" Alec asked with a raison-face.

Max realized she'd said it out loud.

"I don't think there's much point in looking for Mallory if Seattle is in the dark ages. And would you please stop doing that with your face?"

He waved his open hand in front of her, "Pooh!"

She rolled her eyes and was about to lecture him about sucking it up like a soldier, but she realised it would not fall on quickly departing ears. Alec had a stubborn set to his shoulders as he headed out the barn. She followed.

"I don't care if we are living the provincial life, I'm finding a shower," he pointed an accusing finger at her. "With soap."

Max noted the finger. Still pointing at her. Was he erroneously blaming her?

"This isn't my fault, jackass."

"Garlic. Sewers. Cowpats. That is definitely _all_ you."

He whipped around and continued to wander off through a small path carved through the trees, rambling to himself or the universe. He swung at passing leaves; an ineffectual attempt at removing the stench his sensitive nose couldn't miss. She smiled to herself, proud that her good spirits and restraint towards his behaviour showed a remarkable amount of character growth from her. She wondered if it would last.

"You keep doing that and you're going to end up with a rash."

"Hey, I took herbology 101. I know my way around a tree or two."

"I'm just saying. Don't blame me if you hit poison oak."

"Poison oak isn't a tree," he grumbled. He stopped swiping at flora and held his hand stiffly away from him.

The moon light was more than enough to go by; Max just wasn't sure where they were going to. This world might not even have showers, and it was more likely than not, it would definitely have a headache. If it was one thing she'd learned: they were going to find trouble no matter what they did or didn't do.

"Hallelujah. Civilization. Now to find me a hot mamma that will share her shower with a wayward son."

Max grimaced. The language of the boy reeked of a badly planned slang and pop culture class, not to mention that there was no way any hot-blooded woman would think of Alec as a son. Max erased that final thought.

Ahead of her, a not-so-sprawling metropolitan spread over the horizon. It looked similar enough to her Seattle, but even from a distance it looked like this version was more run-down. The tall skyscrapers, usually reserved for the wealthy, held no rich, beckoning light for distant travelers. She was sure the moon's inability to reflect on the windows was due to their absence. The pulse must have hit this reality harder than theirs. The city seemed to be in the middle of a brown-out. She couldn't see any active checkpoints. Actually, she couldn't see any evidence of people at all. There was also something else. She couldn't put her finger on it…

"Do you smell that?" Alec asked, pausing as he took in the same sights.

"I'm trying not to."

He glanced at her and down at his hand, "Not _that_. The air. The city."

Max's nose twitched, "I can't place it."

"Fear. Desperation. Resignation. Nothing pretty. It's like a death camp."

Max's lips thinned. Another of Manticore's fluffy childhood treats. She felt, rather than saw, Alec glance at her quickly and look away again.

"How long have we got in this world?" he asked; his face granite in the moonlight.

"Two days," Max answered, wondering if this was one of those moments when she was meant to ask him about the past, or just shut the hell up.

"I kinda hate that portal jumping speeds up my need for munchies."

Not a moment for cuddly talk then.

"Yeah, where's Daisy your cow when you need her?"

Alec pulled his lips into a disgusted grimace.

"I can't eat Daisy. She's marked me. We have a bond now." His matter-of-fact jest was quickly replaced by a serious study of the landscape ahead. "I think we hit and run. Get in. Get soap. Get food. Get gone. Odds are, we keep quiet, no one will know we're in that barn."

Max snorted, "_You_ keep quiet?"

Alec shrugged, "It's happened."

Without waiting, he started down towards the city. Naturally silent, his movements made little sound. The darkness would be on their side for a few more hours at least. They'd probably be in and out before the surprises of this world could lay a trap for them.

She hoped.

They made their way through the darkness. The closer they got to the city, the more disturbed Max felt. The feeling of wrongness tickled the hairs on the back of her neck. It wasn't merely the scent of desperation, there just didn't seem to be the usual signs of activity so close to a major human settlement.

And it was quiet.

Very quiet.

Max didn't consider herself to be particularly imaginative, but scenarios started running through her head. Was there a war? Is it a disease? Given their recent experiences, she even stretched her mind to include more outlandish ideas like serial killers, gang warfare or mutant rodents. As they neared the lower outskirts of the city, she prepared herself for fight or flight. She had a feeling Alec was doing the same.

They passed one street and then another and another. No lights, no sounds, no movement. There was a wary watchfulness; an alertness for the drop of a bomb; the acceptance of the pain that would come. Max didn't like it. Her senses told her to retreat.

The city seemed neglected, but it was much more than graffiti or litter. Windows were boarded up. Any store they passed seemed empty of stock. There were no cars. Not a single one parked on the street in all the streets they passed and all the side-roads they looked down.

"Hold up," Alec whispered.

He headed over to a juncture between buildings and knelt down. Max neared him as he plunged his hands into a wash-tub of rain water. Max gave a small smile. His vanity won out every time.

Alec looked up, "Someone put this here to collect the rain."

Max stuck her tongue out, "For their sake, I hope it wasn't for drinking water."

Alec flicked water off his hands as he stood up.

"No one's been around here for a while. I don't like this," he chewed his lip. "I don't think we're gonna find food or much of anything."

Max nodded. "Okay, so we don't know the nasty, but we can guess it probably happened between now and the Pulse. The city's structure doesn't look too different. Quinn Mallory was probably alive and kicking and portal theorizing in this world over a decade ago. What could it hurt to at least find a phone book and see if he's around before we head undercover and wait this bitch out?"

"When you start asking about how much it can hurt, I start worrying. I've had enough blows to my dignity and uh…" he coughed.

"Oh please. You can't _still_ hold that against me. If you'd just thrown the fight…"

Alec shrugged and turned away. He pointed straight ahead of him.

"Logan's place. Thattaway."

Max blinked. "Sorry?"

"Can you think of anyone else that'll have a phone book? Hell, he might even have every one on the entire planet? Why?"

Max fumbled for the words. "I just didn't think of… I mean, this doesn't seem like the kind of place he'd be anymore."

"He's the crusader of all things good. This place looks pretty cracked. He'll be here." Alec sounded as sure as she was uncertain.

She felt guilty that Alec had more faith in Logan than she seemed to. In truth, she hadn't thought Logan would be here because the entire city seemed to be in decay and ruin already. Logan liked almost-lost causes because he could still do something about them. She didn't think he'd stick around in a place with no creature comforts, like electricity or wine, without a really good reason. _Like me_, a voice in her head said before she violently squashed it.

She couldn't let herself think about Logan. She had more than enough trouble on her hands just dealing with Alec on a daily basis, and there was only one version of him.

Silence seemed prudent as they trekked through the empty streets toward Fogle towers. Max imagined she saw movement out of the corner of her eye from time to time, but whether there was or not, she didn't think it was wise to pursue the matter.

Alec reached the entrance a few steps ahead of her. His hands pushed up against an unyielding pair of reception doors.

"Rude," he stated as he stepped back. "You'd think he was avoiding us."

Max rolled her eyes, "He's not in there Alec."

"Yeah, well, someone is. It's blockaded from the inside." He looked around thoughtfully, "What are they hiding from?"

Max stared at the doors. The windows were blackened and likely boarded up too. She felt a stab of guilt. She was supposed to be a soldier. Cities weren't meant to be fall to fear like this. It was usually the innocent that got hurt the most.

Reluctantly, she forced these people and their troubles to the back of her mind.

"We head to ground and lay low. I don't want to meet what's scaring up the locals."

Alec's eyes shifted to the doors. She felt him go through the same guilt and denial before he too, realized the futility of being a passer-by on a fallen world. He fell into step beside her. It was a testament to how much in sync they were that they both automatically turned into the darkness and the paths they knew; fleeing the moonlight that might expose them.

"Well, lookey. A midnight snack."

Max and Alec glanced at each other. The bemused expression on Alec's face probably mirrored her own. They both turned to face the first voice that had intruded upon them since entering this reality.

They faced another duo, who unlike them, were framed in the natural light. The newcomers made no attempt to conceal themselves or embrace caution. Max had a feeling they were face to face with a small part of a collective reason why the people in this world were terrified. Their appearance was startling enough.

"Woah," Alec's eyes widened as he took them in, "My condolences to your mother."

The Wolf-man growled at Alec. Max had immediately thought of him as wolf-like. His eyes were feral and his hands seemed poised to grope and tear. His ruddy face was lined with puffy tufts of beard that, like his hair, seemed to stick out at angry angles. He could have been a sundial. His friend was shaven and had long, black hair, but he too echoed menace in the way he moved and studied the darkness. Max had an instinctual urge to slink further back into the shadows.

Long-hair chuckled at Alec's stony insolence.

"You've got guts. I hope they taste as good as they sting. I like 'em when they're spicy."

Alec tilted his head at Max, "Hey Maxie. You think we should send him to White's school of wannabe villains. All this guy needs is some warts and a bald cat for a side-kick and he might actually be scary. If he starts quoting Shakespeare, we could even upgrade him to terrifying."

Long-hair laughed even louder. Wolfie growl hiccuped into a bark; a wolfish bark that grew in anger and intensity. Max found herself transfixed as Wolfie's face somehow… changed.

His hair grew coarser and sprouted on areas of his face that had been clear before. His snout, and that is what his nose had become, elongated and blackened, revealing sharper teeth growing beneath thin, black lips pulled back into an animal snarl. Even his body seemed to thicken and strain beneath his clothes. His finger nails truly did taper into claws now.

"Okay," Alec said slowly. "That's new."

Long-hair continued to laugh as Wolfie advanced. Max's body tensed into fighting posture. Alec did the same beside her. Max tried to ignore the fact that Wolfie was now almost the same size as Joshua, and looked a hell of a lot more pissed off.

She launched herself forward, hoping her speed would give her the advantage. She dropped to her ass a moment later. Her entire leg was vibrating. It felt like she'd just attacked a mountain. Wolfie probably hadn't felt her at all. He just steam-rolled right through her in an attempt to get to-

She looked up abruptly.

Alec dodged in the shadows, avoiding rather than trying to fight. Max ruefully acknowledged that his tactics had probably been inspired by her rather clumsy fall from grace. Wolfie had the same strength as Joshua, if not more. Neither one of them would be a match head-on.

"You've not been forgotten girlie."

Long-hair sprang and landed in a feral crouch directly in front of her. Max vaulted to her feet.

"Max. Hand."

"Mine are a little full right now, Alec!"

"Max!"

She glanced at him and saw that he was, in fact, holding his hand out of her.

"Oh" she muttered, and grabbed hold of him.

Preparing herself, she allowed him to pull her toward him and increase her momentum. Spinning with him, she used their combined strength to slingshot into Wolfie. She was satisfied when she felt his face connect with her boots and recoil. Keeping the drive going, Alec swung her towards Long-hair, and he too felt the sting. Her senses came alive with the headiness that usually accompanied a successful fight.

She stumbled forward into the moonlight. Her support abruptly gone.

Wolfie gripped Alec by the throat; his feet dangling ineffectually off the ground and hands intent on stopping Wolfie from crushing his larynx. Max raced forward—

"No no girlie. This is the fun part. Watch his eyes almost turn cold before we eat his heart."

Long-hair held her in an iron grip; her arms protested at the pressure on them. She just wanted to kick out and hurt him. So she did.

A pained squeak emitted from behind her. The grip loosened and she used all her strength to break away from it. She turned around to Long-hair, who crouched with his pain in his hands. She stood triumphant in the moonlight. Long-hair studied her in disbelief.

"It's doesn't matter how big they are…"

She pushed against his forehead and he stumbled down to one knee.

A strangled gurgle behind her reminded her to forgo her moment of victory. She rushed back toward Alec—

"Capture," Long-hair moaned.

Wolfie's fist hit her squarely in the face. The rest faded to black.

* * *

There were voices. Her hands felt heavy; she had a major headache and it felt like the world was lifting and falling under her. All these signs told her that she was still alive. The close visual of someone's butt told her that she had been hoisted over someone's shoulder like a rolled-up ratty blanket.

Max cracked her eyes open. Alec was unconscious and similarly trussed up over Wolfman's shoulder. It felt like a den of people around them, but the scents were strange. Without alerting their captors to her alertness, she turned slightly, trying to ignore how still Alec was. She'd bet anything they were in the heart of Terminal City. The atmosphere was relaxed, almost excited. She really hoped it had nothing to do with them.

The sound of their pack mules' footsteps changed as they entered a building. The air grew warmer as they headed further into the bowels of the building. An orange glow danced onto the walls. Max had almost expected it, but she still felt a stab of anger as she was unceremoniously thrown over Long-hair's shoulder and dumped on the floor. Alec's hands thumped on the floor beside her almost immediately.

Max pushed herself up and glared at the two uglies as they stepped away from her. Long-hair merely smiled as Wolfie headed into another room.

"Alec?"

She rolled him over and checked his throat. It was reddened, but his pulse was strong beneath the bruising.

"Alec. Wake the hell up. This is no time for napping."

She lightly thumped his shoulder. His eyes flickered open. It took a few moments for his eyes to actually focus on her.

"Did we win?" he slurred.

"Yeah," she smiled thinly, "We set them up perfectly. We have them right where we want them."

"Aw crap. We're screwed."

She helped him sit up.

"Where's my favorite Ugly?" Alec asked, spotting Long-hair. "Did I at least take him out?"

Max was about to answer-

"…good reason for waking me up."

Max felt like she was hearing an echo, but Alec's reaction put rest to that idea. They both turned toward a doorway. Max was sure her eyes couldn't get any wider.

Max had long reconciled that Manticore liked twinning. She'd come face to face with her own twins and clones a few times, and had needed to grow to accept Alec because he reminded her of one of the most painful experiences of her life; the death of his damaged twin at her hands.

But there was no way in hell she could have ever been prepared for this.

Barefoot and shirtless, this world's twin had obviously just been awoken. She'd seen Alec shirtless before, that was hardly new, but it was what was on his skin that drew her eyes there. The runes. He had them. She was so intent on them that she barely took note of his face.

"Clones? You woke me up for some… strange-looking Manticore specials?"

"Who's strange-looking? Fang-boy," Alec retorted.

Max frowned and finally took her eyes off the markings sporadically dotting his bare flesh.

The twin's hair was longer and darker than Alec's. Fingers of it fell across his eyes. Max's heart took two steps at once. His eyes glowed; still hazel but brighter; feral. Less like a cat, more like something she didn't know.

He smiled.

His teeth revealed another surprise. Fangs had replaced canines.

Long-hair spoke.

"They don't just look strange. They are much weaker too."

"Again, why should I care? Manticore probably just made them for spare parts."

Long-hair grabbed Alec roughly and threw him down in front of his twin.

"Look at his neck. Then look at hers."

Alec's twin peered down as Long-hair yanked Alec's jacket down further so that his barcode was revealed. For the first time, the twin seemed interested.

"Identical," the twin shook his head. "Strange, but not worth investigating this close to the move. Get rid of them."

The twin turned away. Wolfie smiled and bared his claws. Max felt a surge of adrenalin hit her system. Max tensed beside her.

"I wouldn't like it if you hurt them," a quiet voice purred from the other end of the room.

"Siren. Not now."

The twin seemed exasperated by the appearance of the scantily-clad newcomer from the exact same doorway that he himself had exited minutes before. His own state of undress suddenly took on a whole new light.

"Are you two having sex?" Max shrieked.

Two identical smirks turned in her direction. Max wanted to hit one of them. She settled for the one closest to her.

"Ow," Alec rubbed his arm.

"No no, little sister, that's not how you handle them."

Max watched as her mirror image gracefully glided toward them in her bare feet. The way she moved made Max feel like an ungainly, large-footed tom-boy. Her twin's gauzy dress did nothing for Max's sense of modesty. The dress fell off one shoulder, revealing the lines of lacy underwear, which seemed expensive and frivolous given the surrounding world, but Max was suddenly grateful her twin had them. Max could see Alec stare transfixed at the way the material moved and revealed the tan, long lines of her legs. Max's legs, by extension. She thumped him upside the head again, and to his credit, he didn't react at all.

His twin was amused.

Max's twin, Siren he called her, knelt in front of Alec. She held out her hand for him. Alec stared at it like it was the proverbial apple that ended paradise. He glanced at Max, unsure. She gave a small shrug of her shoulders. Moving his head in a slow shake from left to right as though giving himself a silent warning, Alec accepted Siren's hand and stood up. Max smoothly stretched to her feet once she was sure no other party in the room was about to attack. Siren, though a little strange, seemed to have some sort of authority over the others – or at least over anyone that didn't resemble Alec.

His twin was watching Siren with a complete look of annoyance; it wasn't jealously, more impatient disdain. Max recognized the look. She'd worn it often when dealing with Alec. She didn't think she'd used it in a while.

Max waited for something to happen. Anything. Instead, Siren simply held onto Alec's hand, and he – reacting like a typical man-beast when confronted with a scantily-clad body (Max ignored that it was _her_ scantily-clad body) – simply stared at her.

Max crossed her arms and glared at the side of Alec's head. Any minute he'd feel it and, somehow, they'd find a way out of this mess.

"There. See how easy it is?" Siren smiled at Alec and stroked his jaw.

Max's mouth fell open. He was leaning into Siren's hand. _Leaning!_ She could tell his eyes were a little glazed, like he'd taken a ripe knock to the noggin. His lips were parted, and they seemed softer and ready for… something that Max was having none of.

"Alec! Snap out of it!"

Everyone ignored her.

Siren swayed closer to him.

"Do you think he has any markings?"

She fingered the edge of his shirt.

"Maybe I should compare." She smiled to herself, "Maybe I should compare at the same time."

"That's enough Siren," Alec's twin yawned, possibly from boredom. "You can play later."

Siren ignored him; her dreamy grin never faltered. Max was starting to wonder if the girl was defective in some way. Siren boldly and quickly shoved her hand under Alec's shirt and up his chest.

"Siren…"

The sound Alec made was something akin to a yelp. He stared at Siren in wide-eyed shock. Her smile widened.

Alec's twin turned to Wolfie and Long-hair, "Go get Jon." He sighed loudly as they left the room. "Siren. Siren?"

She ignored him completely, too amused by Alec, though Max couldn't see why. Alec seemed too afraid to move. Max was sure she was missing something.

Siren tilted her head, and though Max saw no other movement, Alec suddenly stumbled backward.

"Oh. God," he moaned, and fell to his knees. He didn't take his eyes off Siren as she swayed toward him again.

His twin shook his head, disgusted, "Perfect. He's not even immune."

"Immune? Immune to what?" Max demanded. Captive or not, she'd had enough. She grabbed Siren's arm, "Back off Salmonella! Take your freaked-out tr-"

Max recoiled as Siren's fist connected with her face. That would sting in the morning. She'd been expecting the fight, but hadn't expected her twin to be so much stronger than she was.

Alec's twin chuckled, "Just because she doesn't need to combat, doesn't mean she can't. If I were you, I'd play dead."

"By all means, drop dead," Max snapped, which just made him grin. She'd forgotten how much Alec's cocky smirk used to annoy the hell out of her. It was marginally less annoying than the idea that her alternate self could kick her down without breaking a sweat. The rules of this reality were a little unfair. But then Max had practice at being unfair.

Blurring around Siren and joining her two fists together, Max hammered the back of Siren's head. It didn't exactly make a dent, but she was pleased to see that the three super-transgenics were surprised. That meant they were built for strength, not speed, and that gave Max a new edge. Max felt a little embarrassed that her twin seemed so easily confused by Max's hit-n-run tactics.

"Alec! Time to go. Get off your ass."

Alec remained on his knees and nodded his head. Max had the distinct impression that he was stoned.

"Be right with ya Maxie."

"I can see that. What, with your total lack of movement and all. Get moving soldier!"

Her peppy motivation speak wasn't working. Max feinted and made to blur around Siren again to reach Alec. She'd get them out of this mess if she had to carry his lethargic ass through the city and away from this freak show.

"You know… Maxie is it?... you just became interesting," Alec's twin smiled into her ear as he clamped two very powerful arms around her. Max pushed, kick and threw her legs up into the air, but her efforts to escape went largely unnoticed. She sagged against the twin's bare chest. His skin ran much cooler than hers and Alec's; she suspected it was colder than an Ordinary's too. The most disturbing realization, however, was that her own body felt like it was heating up. She didn't think she'd been this aware of a male body since the last time she'd been in heat.

"That's better," the twin crooned. "Now let's get to know each other a little better."

"I want to play," Siren pouted.

"Too bad," the twin gritted between clenched teeth. "It's time for the grown-ups to speak. Go play somewhere else."

Siren stepped in front of Max, staring over her head at her captor. She folded her arms and squared a stubborn jaw, "I want to play."

Max really hoped she didn't look as pouty and petulant when she didn't get her way. It was odd looking at herself and seeing a childish spoiled brat.

There seemed to be a staring contest between Siren and the twin.

"Fine," the twin grumbled. "Go wait in bed."

Siren clapped her hands together giddily and bounced away. She reached the doorway that must lead to the bed and turned around, hand lovingly stroking the door frame.

"Can he come too?"

Both Max and the twin yelled, "No!"

Siren scowled and stalked away.

"With any luck, she'll start playing with herself and forget about us," the twin said under his breath; a breath that tickled the back of her neck.

"Urgh. You're worse than he is," Max spat, looking over at the he in question. Alec hadn't really moved. He swayed on his knees, staring straight ahead.

"What did she do to him?"

"Nothing he didn't like. Whether or not he survives it…"

Max dug her elbows back into his ribs, as much to stop his breath and voice from tickling the back of her neck as it was an attempt to escape and help Alec.

"You know," a new voice intruded as a woman entered the room with Wolfie following her, "you wouldn't have to keep calling me if you'd stop being a complete slut and having sex with someone you think is as dumb as a doorknob."

The dark-haired woman stopped as she took in the scene. She was Max's age, had a similar height and wore similar clothes, but unlike Max, who had the smarts and look of a tough city cat, this girl seemed all sex kitten. Her eyes fell and stayed upon Alec. She went as white as a freshly-laundered sheet.

"It's not him," the twin asserted.

The woman didn't seem to hear and walked forward toward Alec.

"Is he injured?"

"Siren got him first."

"He's not immune?" the woman asked and knelt in front of Alec. She checked his pulse and forehead, and even lifted his eyelids to properly look into his eyes. Breathing a sigh of relief, she sat back on her haunches, "She's got to him, but he's fine. It'll wear off, but I'll try and alleviate some of the worst symptoms."

Max felt the twin smiling behind her again, "Oh I bet you will."

The other woman glared, "If I were a pervert, I'd be you. Why exactly are you draped all over Siren's twin like a soggy blanket anyway?"

"Damn. Who told you she wasn't the original?" the twin let Max go. She pushed angrily against his departing arms, as though she had freed herself. The tingle on her skin was soothed by the chill of the air, but she still seemed acutely aware of where he was.

"I think it's fairly obvious this isn't Siren."

"Yeah, this one doesn't look quite as stupid," the twin moved away from Max, who stood glaring at his back, and over to Alec, who was being gently helped up by the unnamed woman. She looked at Alec's face again and moved some of the hair on his forehead.

"He looks so much like him," she whispered.

"Jon, _I_ look like him," the twin reminded.

Jon shrugged, "Yeah, but you're an evil bastard."

Max twigged.

"Jondy?"

Jon turned slowly toward Max, "Okay, for a flat-lining clone, that was a pretty good guess. What's your name?"

"Max."

The name sparked some recognition with the woman. She glanced at Alec's twin.

"Coincidences happen," he shrugged.

"Right. So a clone just happens to have Siren's childhood name, which I remind you, was first given to her by your brother."

The twin pointed at Alec, "He doesn't have my name."

"If your actual name is Dick, then it was a close call," Max shared.

Alec made a face that could have been a grin through his stupor. It was pained. Jondy saw it.

"Look, I don't have time for this. I need to help him." She turned and glared at the twin, "Don't let anyone hurt her; that includes you."

She helped Alec hobble out of the tent. Max made to follow—

"Nu uh _Max_," he inflected her name in a way Alec never had, but then, Alec wasn't under the misconception that he was on intimate terms with her. Max was about to rectify that.

"Okay buddy, let's get some things straight. One, you don't get to say my name that way. Two, you don't get to look at me _that_ way," she shoved her finger in his face to illustrate exactly which way she meant. "What the hell is your name anyway?"

"Castor."

"What kind of a name is that? Do you have a magic wand that makes dragons shoot out of your ass?"

His smirk was all Alec. She clamped down on her lips. She'd need to watch what she said around him too. His eyes flicked over to Wolfie.

"Caleb, escort our new littlest sister to a room," he turned away. "Oh and spread that word that they're not to be harmed."

Wolfie chuckled.

Castor rolled his eyes, "You think I need _her_ on my ass too. Just do it."

Max was feeling a little unappreciated and more like a sack of potatoes being passed around.

She put her hand up, "What makes you think I need your protection?"

Castor smiled, "Aren't you a little spitfire?" he bit his bottom lip, "Anyway _Max_, I think I'm going to give your twin a solid look-over. You know, just to make sure it's not you I give _this_ look too."

Max's body couldn't decide whether to jump wrap her hands around his bare neck or turn red from tip to toe.

* * *

Alec clawed upwards through air as he woke. He looked around groggily. He was in a bed. So far, nothing wrong with the picture. He was missing his shirt, and when he peeked under the covers, his shoes and socks too. Also, nothing wrong with the picture.

"Aw man," he whinged out loud. "Don't tell me there was another friggin' gossamer."

He touched his chest and it felt sticky. He didn't really want to know what it was, because he really had no idea how it got there. The last thing he remembered clearly was Max touching him. No, not Max, another one like her. Well, whoever the hell she was she'd had a touch like a hammer. He'd been floored from the moment skin met skin. Just thinking about it was making his body tingle. He wondered where she was…

"You're gonna have to keep that stuff on for a while longer," the woman he vaguely remembered from the night before stepped into the tent. She held a plate covered in a cloth. He really hoped that was for him and not some weird-ass torture. She gave a bemused smile as she looked at him, "And from the looks of it, I think you'll need a couple more applications too."

Alec felt a peculiar heat around his face. Was he blushing? He _was_ blushing. He bunched the covers around his waist.

"Don't worry," the woman continued, ignoring his reaction, "It's what she does. I once overheard a guard say that if he ever had to choose a way to go, it would by her hands." The woman shrugged, "Well, least he got his wish."

This was one of the few times Alec had woken up in a bed near a red hot female and didn't know what to do or say.

She handed him the plate and took the cover off. It was a variety of fruit and raw veggies. He took it anyway. Maybe there was no such thing as junk food in this world.

"Sorry, it's not the good stuff," she shrugged. "No one knows you, trusts you, or even likes you. So this is what you get."

Alec bit into an apple and mumbled, "How could they not like me? They don't even know me. I'm wonderful."

"You have your brother's face. No one can like the leader of an entire nation."

Alec shrugged and kept eating. Not his fault. Not his problem. The covers shuddered against his chest as he leaned over the plate.

"What is this crap you put on me anyway?"

"A little of this; a little of that," she sat on a cot opposite him. "You're lucky, you know. If you were an Ordinary you'd be dead by now. Be glad the only affects you've had is the strong desire to hump my leg."

Alec abruptly stared at her, his eyes wide and mortified, "I didn't—?"

She burst into peals of laughter, "No, I just wanted to see that expression on your face."

"Great, you're like Max. Only with a sense of humor," he shook his head. "Where is she?"

"Scouting escape routes last I heard, but it won't come as a complete surprise that neither of you would make it very far."

Alec believed her.

"You got a name?"

"Jondy. Max knew it, but you don't. That's odd if you're both from the same Manticore program."

"Not really. She and hers escaped long before me and mine did. When'd you fly the coop? Or did they let you out for good behavior?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"Nah, good ol' fashioned mass mutiny a few years back. Where was your facility? Were you a backup army or just created for soft missions?"

"Uh. Yeah," he nodded. Let them think what they would; either way it was probably better than trying to explain alternate realities.

Jondy frowned and he could sense the questions about to come.

"Mmmm." Max swirled into the room – correction, Max's twin swirled into the room – wearing that clingy, almost-translucent dress that revealed way too much thigh and a generous amount of shoulder and neck. She was fanning herself with a small, pocket-book.

The interruption extracted him from the conversation. Jondy turned toward the twin like a TV-show mamma greeting her daughter.

"Did you get any new ones today, Siren?"

"Oh yes," Siren gushed. "I was very thorough. You wouldn't believe where I find them." She tapped the book, before laying it on a table near the other cot. Alec then felt her turn her full attention on him. He fought the urge to pull himself under the covers.

"I want to look for some more," Siren crooned.

"He doesn't have any," Jondy stated.

Siren took a few steps forward toward him, hips moving with an exaggerated sway, "Are you sure?"

"Very sure."

Siren pouted, "Why not? Ben had them too."

Jondy's eyes dropped for a moment. Alec felt a sore nerve prickle as she answered quietly, "This isn't Ben or Castor."

"Then who is he?"

"People call me Alec or Oh My God."

Alec grinned at his joke. Siren didn't get it. Alec wiped his expression clean.

"But why isn't he special? Why doesn't his skin tell the future?"

Alec's eyebrows rose. Through the haze of the night before, he remembered that his doppelganger'd had the same markings as Max. Siren's little book suddenly seemed very interesting.

"Well Siren, maybe he's just plain normal like you and me," Jondy offered kindly.

Siren thought for a moment. A smile broke over her face again.

"I want to make extra sure," she started forward toward him again. He grabbed the covers to his chest.

"Alec! Are you in—"

If Siren was a beautiful butterfly floating into the room, Max was a storm battering destruction on the air. She stopped abruptly at the door she had half-opened. Her eyes were wide and she had a circular mouth to match. It took a moment for her face to change to the emotions he immediately saw spark in her eyes. He braced himself for a very different onslaught.

She barged into the room, "You can't keep it in your pants for twelve hours?"

"Wow, was I out that long?" he asked casually.

"Oh please. How could you—I can't even—urgh!" she paced in front him. Siren and Jondy's eyes followed the tennis match that was Alec and Max's friendship. "I swear, you'd better not have had sex with me too."

Alec raised a confused brow. Siren's smirk rivaled any he could give. Max glared at her.

Jondy was bemused, "I think we'll leave you two alone."

Shepherding a reluctant Siren out of the room, she shut the door behind them as they left.

Max's breathed loudly and slowly. It was yet another sign that he, Alec, had done something unforgivably wrong. He couldn't say whether he had or he hadn't, so his silence was his best truth. Letting out a long exhale, she sat on the bed beside him. He unconsciously pulled the covers further up his bare chest. Where the hell was his shirt and jacket anyway?

"While you were… here," she muttered with distaste, "I did a scout of the city. This is definitely Terminal City, but with two major differences. There are no walls or fences, but that doesn't mean there isn't a set perimeter. I frigging sensed it," she shuddered. "This world creeps me out. Also, their army is a lot bigger than ours, and most of them are freaks."

Alec chuckled, "That's not very nice, Maxie. What have we learned about tolerance? Genetically endowed would be a better term."

"Alec, they're freaks. The Wolfman was only the tip of a weirdest Manticore-icing on the cake. A lot of them can change like that, and not just into dogfaces. There are bears and cats and god knows what else. I was trying not to look too closely."

"Okay, so they're a little more different than usual, it's not a big—"

Max grabbed his arm, "No. It's worse. Some of them can move things with their minds. Like the mini-Familiars at that whacked out school."

Alec vaguely remembered Max telling Original Cindy - which he'd had no choice but to overhear - about the school. Mostly there had been a lot of blahblah subtext about Logan. Alec didn't see what the big deal was.

"So what?" he shrugged, "You think the transgenics are Familiars? Does it matter? Not our problem. You really oughtta learn to let these things slide. In another day, we'll be out of here."

Max gaped at him. "Alec. We could be among a den of snakes."

"Max, back home, we're considered the den of snakes. As long as we keep our noses clean, they won't hassle us."

"How the hell do you know?"

"Because last night I came _this_ close to saying a prayer, but I'm still here in the morning."

"Noon Alec. It's after noon."

He lifted his shoulders with apology. Squishing her lips together, she regarded his food before snaking a crunchy vegetable away from him.

"So they're feeding you bunny food too. I thought they just didn't like me."

Alec protectively scooped his hands around the sides of his plate, "Maybe they don't know what Cheetos are."

Max stifled a laugh. It could have been a sneer.

They were silent for a moment as each contemplated their own thoughts. Alec's thoughts could not be contained for long.

"Max. Can you see my clothes anywhere?"

* * *

"Will you shake it off?" Max griped for the 89th time.

"Yeah, yeah," Alec mumbled. "Let's see how you handle it when your downstairs brain is set on fire."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Alec knew that if she could cuss with just her breath, his ears would be almost imploding about now.

"We're here."

She stopped, and Alec figured it would be a bright idea for him to do the same. He eyeballed the area. There really wasn't much to write home about. They'd passed a few dozen freaks on the way over, mostly engaged in moving equipment around, but their afternoon was turning out to be mostly uneventful.

She was watching him. There was a pregnant pause in the air. She had the look of a teacher waiting for an answer from the class dunce. Fine. She wasn't going to straight-out tell him what was blowing a breeze up her skirt. He knew a thing or two about games.

"That's a really fine section of wall you've found, Max. I'm heading back, see ya."

He regarded the wall she was staring out. It was a fair distance away. Yep, still didn't get it. It wasn't even guarded.

"Alec!" she grabbed him. "They're hiding something behind that wall. It's the one place in the entire city that feels the same as their creep-assed perimeter. I have a really bad feeling about it."

"You know that things would go a hell of a lot smoother if we just stayed away from trouble, right? How about, we don't look, and they don't tell? I can live with that and the complete lack of bullet holes that'll not come my way."

Max crossed her arms over her chest, "I can't let it go. Something is there. Something we need to know."

Alec briefly pondered asking if this was a female thing, "No good will come of this Max."

She lowered her eyes, "I know."

Alec let out a loud, tired breath. Max could brow-beat him into just about anything. Max looking contrite and troubled made the stupidity of his actions a certainty.

"Don't suppose you noticed during your travels if these guys are as fast as us, or if last night was just a fluke?"

Max's smile lit up her eyes. He knew he was done for. She was going to get him killed… or thrown to her twin. His mind and body couldn't agree on which would be worse.

Wiping the expression from her face, she regarded the walled enclosure, "So, you think charging straight in is the best idea?"

"No. I was thinking we'd better be the faster runners if they see us," he pointed to the side. "I prefer our usual patented approach…"

"Being sneaky," they said in unison.

"Wind's about right," he commented.

Max nodded as she swept her eyes across their surroundings. "I think they're mostly active at night. There were more of them around early this morning. The ones we've seen today were mostly grunts carrying around boxes and crates."

He nodded in agreement. There didn't seem to be much more to discuss. Without words, they seamlessly moved back the way they had come. All five senses - and maybe a sixth or seventh too – were primed to detect any movement, sound or scent that would bring danger. Like shadows, they slipped in through a low, dusty window, careful to leave no trace of their activities behind.

Their innately supreme sense of direction led them to a dead end, but once they'd circumvented that little obstacle they neared their objective with a sense of trepidation. The scent of fear that was pervasive over the entire city seemed somehow stronger here. Alec had the gnawing instinct to turn away and pretend there was nothing to find.

Stealth was the reason for their silence, but it was not the sole reason they both automatically slowed down as they neared their objective. Alec wondered if Max was experiencing the same second thoughts that he was.

They neared the window that would take them to the wall. Without word or signal, they each took a different side and scanned the surrounds thoroughly.

Alec gave an all-clear signal. Max vaulted outside with feline grace. Alec shifted position to watch as she landed on the wall and crouched down low. No alarm was raised. No movement was heard. Alec felt it was probably lucky that this freak nation weren't expecting any threats from above, but beneath his speculation was the uncomfortable feeling that they just weren't that concerned about anyone getting inside.

Max signaled the okay for him to join her. Alec pushed himself up and over. He could never be as graceful as Max, but he still had style. He landed beside her, immediately drawing himself into a crouch. They set off along the wall, tightly nestled beneath a short border as they made their way above the belly of the labyrinth.

They dropped another level and climbed through a hatch into a tight space. Alec had to bend over almost perpendicularly in order to walk along the narrow walkway surrounding the large inner chamber. There were no guards in the interior of the compound. It soon became obvious why they weren't needed. Alec found his mind drawing itself back into a safe, apathetic cocoon.

"Oh my god," Max whispered to herself in shock.

Humans, Ordinaries, were tightly-packed in the massive room. Most were sitting on the floor, some were lying; others were leaning against the walls. There were no beds or chairs, but it seemed obvious that they'd been stuck in this room for days, if not weeks. The atmosphere was fraught with terror and acceptance. Perhaps acceptance was the wrong term, Alec mused; this felt more like they'd all given up. They didn't seem harmed or noticeably abused, but a few appeared weak.

Max started forward, all steam and fire, "We need to get them out of here."

Alec grabbed her arm and pulled her further back into the crawlspace. Indignant, she slapped at his hand. Her mouth opened and he promptly placed his other hand over it.

"Great idea Max. Charge ahead without a plan and get us both killed," he whispered. "Nocturnal or not, our newest, littlest buddies will take us down before we get out the door."

Slowly, he removed his hand from her lips. She glared at him but didn't seem like she was about to physically throttle him.

"We can't leave them like this."

Her arms were folded; her mind made up.

"We don't even know why they're here. Maybe it's a quarantine. The rest of the city is almost dead. Maybe this is why."

"No. I just think you're trying to keep your hands clean. It's not your world, why the hell should you care, right?"

Alec blinked in recoil. He'd figured that Max had gotten over her "Alec is a selfish jerk" phase, but then his reasons for caution weren't entirely unselfish.

"Actually I was kinda thinking that before I went up against an opponent that had me outnumbered, outclassed, and oh yeah, out-friggin-maneuvered, I'd, _A_ - have a plan to do that, and _B_ - know exactly who it was I was saving," Alec cut off Max before her protesting breath was fully formed, "You ever stop to think that maybe they're in there 'cause they like to catch people like you and me and string them up to a burning cross? We don't know them; we don't know the way this world works, and we sure as hell don't know how to get them out of here without us or them being recaptured, tortured, maimed, murdered… stop me anytime you think I'm wrong."

His words had exploded from him fast and furiously. Max's lips had lost their angry line and had somehow been replaced by regret? Guilt? Worry? Alec really couldn't say. There was a moment of tense silence. Finally, Max looked away.

"Fine," she conceded. "You find out why they're here and I'll find a way safely out of this mess-hole."

Alec shrugged. At least she'd realizing that fists-blazing wouldn't do them any good. Heavy silence fell between them as they cautiously made their way back through the city. They didn't encounter any trouble, and after seeing the room, Alec knew it was because the transgenics in this world were simply assured of their status: They were better.

"Okay, I think we're clear," Max stopped and turned toward him. "I'll see if there's a spare truck just lying around. You'd probably have the best luck milking the ditz."

Alec wasn't about to tell her that there was no way in hell he was going anywhere near Siren by himself, still, it was funny to see Max squirm over this world's version of her. "You mean _you_?" he asked innocently.

Max's eyes narrowed at the same time she puffed up, "She's not me. She's got inferior genetics … or landed on her head a few times… _because _she has inferior genetics."

Alec smiled, but it quickly lost it when he thought he saw something past Max's shoulder… _someone_ on the other side of the building they were standing next too. He darted forward, trying to catch up to the movement on the other side of the windows.

"What is it?" Max chased after him.

Alec didn't answer, intently following the random bodies he saw through little slits of window.

"They're heading to Castor's place," Max whispered. Off Alec's frown, "The other you." She reminded.

They snuck through the narrow gap between two buildings. They paused as they reached the end. From this vantage point, they could clearly see a dozen or so heavy-set men and women flanking a man and woman of lesser stature.

Castor came out of his building, followed closely by Siren and Jondy. From higher vantage points, the Wolfman and his laughing friend watched with others.

The man in front of the procession stepped forward. Castor merely watched through lazy eyes.

Alec licked his lips anxiously. How his twin reacted would speak volumes.

"The Conclave agrees to your terms," the man known to Max and Alec as Ames White bowed his head respectfully. "We offer one of our own as a gift."

Alec thought for a moment that White meant himself, but one of the Phalanx behind him roughly pushed forward the woman beside Ames. She stumbled toward Castor, looking very much like she wanted to run away. He gripped her arm and regarded her.

"We trust this demonstrates our good faith," White spoke quietly. Alec realized it was spoken in fear. They were afraid. All of them. They looked away at what came next—

Castor's movements were swift. He twisted the women in his arms until her back was to his chest. Dipping his head almost immediately, he sunk suddenly-appearing fangs into her neck. She bit off a brief scream, but within moments she sunk further back into him. Incredulously, she appeared to be in the throes of some fatal ecstasy.

Castor raised his head and gracefully spun his victim toward Siren. She caught the woman, laughing, as though it were a game. That the woman was still alive made no difference to Alec. He could only watch his reflection – _himself_ - with blood on his lips and chin, smile down as the Familiars sank to their knees and knelled at his feet.

In this world, Alec wasn't simply Judas. He was the devil himself.

* * *

Max dragged Alec behind a wall. He hadn't really said anything since they seen… whatever the hell it was they'd just seen. She didn't think she'd ever seen him so pale before, and he'd been enough stupid situations to have warranted that reaction before. It was too unnatural for her to deal with on top of everything else. She smacked his shoulder.

"Are you with me, Alec?"

He blinked at her. Sometimes she thought she actually preferred it when he was giving her a hard time. It was consistent. It was safe.

"I guess there's no point in finding out why the humans are here," his entire face seemed contorted in an expression of self-disgust, "They're food."

Max's heart lurched in horror. She hadn't really let her thought processes get to that line of logic yet. She'd just been too surprised by seeing Alec- Castor victimize someone, and that someone enjoying it immensely. It made sense now. The way her body had reacted to his. He must produce some sort of pimping pheromone.

It didn't explain why Ames White and his merry band of Familiars would bow down to 'transgenic scum'.

Alec's face still read like a book of shame. Max frowned, "Look, you didn't know. It doesn't really change the plan-"

Alec crashed his fist against the wall behind him. Max stared at his hand as trickles of blood were left behind on the wall when he lifted it.

"You feel better now?" she raised an eyebrow.

He shrugged.

"Alec, this just makes things simpler. You scout the north and east, I'll hit the south and west. We'll meet up at Striperella's after dark."

Alec nodded numbly.

"Alec?"

"Yeah yeah," he pulled himself away from the wall and headed away down the length of the building. Max watched him go. Every time she thought she had him figured out, he went and did something weird. She was usually the one to get overly wrought about injustices done toward humans, while he was the detached soldier who occasionally reined her and her volatile emotions in – though she would never admit it to him. At least with both of them set to the goal of saving those people, it was more likely they could do some good before they left.

Max moved south. She'd already scouted the outlying areas once, but this time she was thinking bigger. She'd spent most of her life with one eye on an open door. She'd always needed to know there was an escape route, even if she'd never use it. In the past year since loosing the transgenics on her world, she'd realized that she couldn't take that route unless she was bringing someone with her.

She neared the invisible perimeter. There was no outward sign that anything was different about one side of a street compared to another, but she _felt _it. She also felt, even through there was no breath or hair of someone near her, that _they_ could feel her tentatively approach the barrier and flex her hands over it. Like before, it was an instinctual fear that kept her from crossing the line. She'd been all fired up to crash through it to save those people, but she knew Alec was right. They wouldn't get very far. She wouldn't give up trying though.

Hours later, she gritted her teeth in frustration. The pounding of her heart drummed against her determination. The more the sun fell, the more transgenics she encountered. Many gave her amused smiles as she moved around the city. It was exactly the same as before. They simply did not see her as a threat and were wholly unconcerned that she was viewing them in the process of, what appeared to be, a massive mobilization of the entire city. She could have been an enemy spy but they seemed to treat her like a young child playing in the sandpit.

Supplies were being packed into canvas-covered trucks – she noticed that there were no weapons – and the air had the scent of expectation. It made her feel that she and Alec were under a different clock than the one ticking down in her jacket pocket. She hoped he was having better luck than she was. Noticing the darkness, Max decided she might as well head back to him and trade notes. Alec had a knack of seeing advantages where she couldn't.

"Oh, so you've finally given up?"

Max startled. She'd heard no one approach. Castor crouched on a ledge above her; his eerie eyes almost burning in the darkness.

"I don't give up," she spat back. She didn't know why he'd asked that but she was sure a biting response was exactly what he deserved… if only because he could do a lot worse to her if she smacked his bitch-head like she wanted to.

He gave a full-bellied chuckle. Max threw a frozen stare at him. Like his counterpart, he missed the point completely and took it for an invitation. He leapt from his perch, landing gracefully in front of her. His smile never faltered. She had the distinct impression that he was invading her personal space. The same awareness as before had returned. This time she wasn't going to let her body react. She defensively folded her arms over her chest. The edge of one of her elbows grazed his stomach. Oh how she'd like to just dig in harder, even if it was a dangerous move.

"What?" she demanded, when she realized that the weirdo might be willing to stand and stare at her all night to annoy her.

"Nothing. Just amazed you can hold a thought for longer than two seconds," he smirked. "I bet you're perfectly capable of holding other things though."

Max unfurled her arms and stiffened her finger into a sharp point. She repeatedly poked him in the chest as she spoke, "Listen pal. I'm not your vacant tartlet. You don't get to look at me or talk to me the way you do to her. Period. Ever. Stronger or not, I will kick your ass to the curb and knock it into the pig pen it belongs to. You got that 494?"

"Oh yeah. My ass is twitching in fear," his eyes crinkled in mirth.

"One and the same," she muttered as she turned away from him. She wasn't the least bit surprised that he stepped in line beside her.

"Don't you have anything better to do?"

"I did, but then someone had to be the one to stop you from getting your neck snapped. I'd never hear the end of it."

She glanced sidelong at him before rolling her eyes. He noticed.

"You kept triggering the perimeter. Even humans aren't stupid enough to do that. My newest weakest twin thankfully didn't prove his inferiority either. You…" he shook his head smiling, "You're something else. If zoos still existed, you'd probably ignore the warning signs and try and pet the tiger wouldn't you?"

"Maybe I am the tiger."

"Maybe you're the meat."

She stopped and glared at him, her jaw ticking. "I don't need protection, and definitely not from something like you."

"Okay, maybe you don't want protection, but you'd better listen to some advice. Whatever you're planning, forget it. I don't care if you're spies for some secret sect of Manticore, or maybe you're clones cooked up by the Familiars to make sure we hold up our end of the deal, though why the hell either one would pick your DNA is beyond me."

His words trampled over anything Max tried to say. He held up his hand and steamrolled ahead.

"You're alive for one reason. I can't stand to see her cry. He lives, which means you live. I have an army to look after and your agenda better not become my problem," he titled his head. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Max caught herself. She hadn't realized that she'd let been looking at him in any particular way, but if her face was reflecting her emotions then the closest expression she could imagine was wonder.

"I'm not used to that voice worn on _that_ face."

Castor lifted his lip in horror, "Oh please don't tell me he's a pansy."

Max snorted without thought, "Irresponsible. Immature. A slimy, permanently revved-up slut." She realized that the sudden crinkle to the edge of his smile meant she'd said a little too much.

He moved closer to her, "Slut huh?"

Max became acutely aware that he was attempting to "slut" up to her. His eyes burned over her face, and disturbingly her bare neck. His breath was cool against her cheek. The pit of her stomach turned with a feeling she hadn't felt in a long time. Too long. It was weirding her out.

She placed a restraining hand on his chest.

"I don't think you've noticed, but you're a _vampire_. You eat people. Not exactly a turn-on."

"Don't blame me," he leaned closer to her. Alarmingly, she realized her back was against a wall. She had no idea she'd been trying to get away from him. "Blame Manticore."

Angry that she couldn't stop herself, she pulled in her shoulders and tried to shrink beneath his gaze and he laid one strong hand on the wall beside her head. She should be repulsed by him; disgusted and perhaps even righteous, instead she felt like a rock dove in his hands. It was not a feeling she was used to. It made her want to prove she wasn't.

"Convenient. Blaming Manticore for your actions."

He laughed once more; puffs of breath fingered the hair framing her face.

"Oh sweetheart, I'd love to see the Manticore facility you grew up in. Did they ask you real polite to behave and never hurt a soul?"

She frowned without answer.

"Where I come from, first they made us dependent, then they made us hungry. Then they tried to make us dead because some of us weren't vicious enough."

He stepped back, arms spread encompassing the whole city.

"Humans made us need blood. Humans started the wars. Humans created monsters," he shook his head. "I have an entire species to look after. My species. You have no idea what kind of burden that is. At least I stopped the slaughter. We feed, but they live. Mostly."

"Your pals wanted more than a little snack on our blood last night," she snarled.

"I do what I can, but I can't change them all," he sounded tired and sad. "I can't even change myself. I won't condemn them to die. We didn't choose our fate. We just have to live with it."

Max couldn't help but feel the weight of the world on his shoulders. What choices would she have made if her fellow transgenics needed more than trytophan or a good rock to hide under? Images of Ben's last moments suddenly came unbidden. Perhaps she had no right to judge Castor. She didn't honestly know if she could have done better.

Alec charged into the room where he'd awoken earlier. He was expecting to see Max and felt a fresh surge of annoyance when all he was confronted with was an empty room. He stamped down his anger. It was misplaced. Max was not at fault. He'd taken it into his head that the best way through these worlds was to accept them as they were and move on. But here… here he was a betrayer. There was no good reason to ally himself with White. Worse, he was a murderer – the kind that bumped in the night – he probably ate kids too. Alec couldn't shake of the feeling that he was exactly like his twin. Unworthy of the right to live.

Alec didn't want to be left alone with these thoughts. He wanted his friends Cuervo or Jack to commiserate in his misery. Hell, he'd even settle for the Captain. It didn't surprise him anymore that he found himself bereft of company. Alone, in a strange room of a strange world… with that tempting little notebook lying unguarded on the table where Siren had left it.

He walked slowly to the table. The small book was bursting with notes and pieces of paper pasted into it. He could see portions of a couple of the pages. They were definitely the same runes that Max sported. At least in this world, someone had made progress with translating them. Alec considered putting his staggering brain and memory to good use for once. His fingers trailed closer to the book—

Footsteps made him quickly draw away. The door opened a moment later. He realized he was prepared to dramatically jump out of the window if he was Siren. He couldn't handle another wallop of that woman if she decided to touch him again. Max would skin him alive.

"I know that face," Jondy leaned against the door frame. "What's wrong?"

"Uh nothing," Alec gave a friendly, if not a completely sincere, smile.

She patiently folded her arms in a way that told him she could see right through him. The smile was just as gentle. He felt like guilty. The tenderness in her eyes didn't feel right directed at someone like him.

"I'm not him," he quietly reminded her, not unkindly. "The face you keep seeing is not mine."

Jondy shrugged and padded slowly toward him, her arms unfolding nervously at her sides. She jiggled her fingers against her thighs as though resisting the urge to do something with her hands. She finally gave in to whatever strange urge she had and reached up to play with his jacket collar. Satisfied with whatever her smoothing motions were doing, she dropped her hands to her side again.

"I know you're not him. You're just a lot like him." He could see the beginnings of tears in her eyes. She blinked them away and shook her head. "You're trying to be a brave little soldier, but something is bugging you to hell and gone. I'd rather you just tell me what it is, because I bet you're just as prone to doing something stupid as he was."

"Don't worry, I don't plan on pulling any teeth," he said slowly. Jondy folded her brow in confusion.

"Look Jondy, I'm sure he was a swell guy, but my designation is 494 not 493. I'm probably just like your high and mighty leader. A murderer and a moron. He'd have to be to make a deal with Ames White."

"Soldiers aren't murderers," Jondy bit her lip. "I've had this argument before. Ben was an idealist too."

Alec shook his head, "I'm not an idealist. I've killed innocent people and I even made a deal with the devil. I guess the difference in this world is that I didn't repent for my sins."

"You're not really making any sense. Ames White is hardly the devil. He and the rest of his loonies are terrified of us."

"He's a snake trying to swallow the world, which makes me wonder what's in it for you? Huh? He kills half the world, while you eat the rest?"

He was so used to Max that he recognized the signs of a temper igniting immediately. Jondy pushed him backward. His legs hit the bed and his ass soon followed. He sat staring at her as she towered over him.

"Ben died. Killed by Manticore because he didn't have the heart to kill. It started a goddamn revolution. Your twin burned it all down and saved us. Do you know how many of us want to wipe the humans off the face of the planet? Do you know that Castor and the memory of Ben are the only reasons we don't? We'd happily let the Conclave carry out their plans, but we made a deal to stop it. Hell, we've even given the humans the vaccine to stop the virus if the Familiars don't keep their word. What more do you want? All we want is to live."

Alec had nothing to say to that. He still felt bile in the back of his throat. He couldn't excuse himself from the deal he'd made and any of the lives he'd taken. It must be nice to live in a world where everything could be justified. Jondy sat next to him, thigh to thigh, her anger spent.

"I'm sorry you lost someone you loved," Alec said in a low voice.

Jondy nodded, "I'm sorry you did too."

"What?" Alec was startled.

"Ben stopped killing because his little sister was driven crazy. You only really start to value the life of others when something is taken from you. Something personal. That's why you look like him."

"Oh. So it's got nothing to do with our shared genetic code?" Alec gave the smallest of grins. Jondy smiled, but he had the impression that she could see right through him.

"He must have been a nice guy here," Alec looked at his hands.

"He was just a man. Like you're just a man. Everyone makes mistakes and everyone has a burden. Don't let yours be to see someone else's choices as your own. I know you're not Ben. It's so hard to look at you and remember that. But you're also not Castor. Don't hate yourself because you hate what he's done. "

"I don't hate-"

"I believe the terms you used were murderer and moron."

"You a transgenic shrink?"

"No, I just know what you look like stripped," she kept her face very straight. "Of emotions, I mean." She gave a smile that told him that wasn't what she meant. He found himself smiling back at her.

Morning broke the already broken Seattle skyline. Max had been awake for at least an hour before the dawn. She'd finally gone to her "quarters" when she realised that Castor wasn't going to leave her alone in the city. It was a good excuse to catch up on sleep she hadn't realized she needed. She hoped Alec had better results than she did. She had no clue how they could rescue the humans, and given how well informed Castor was, she knew Alec's initial instincts were right: they'd be caught within minutes of trying.

She pursed her lips. Death might not be the punishment though. Castor had stayed close, real close. He put Alec's lecherous ways to shame. He'd filled her head with so many double-edged innuendos she'd finally decided that keeping silent was the only defense she had. She'd slapped him once but that had made him think it was an open invitation to touch her whenever he could. All very innocently of course. He feigned innocence and even mock-outrage at any suggestion that he was being less than gentlemanly. He was a slippery eel and she'd die of mortification if Alec ever found out that she'd found him charming once. Or twice. She felt her cheeks burning at some of the words and actions. Alec would _never_ know.

She wiped her mouth of the remains of her "breakfast". Raw fruit and vegetables again. She was suddenly glad that the city had such an ample supply of greens. If they'd served her meat the day before, she would currently be freaking out over whether she was living large with Soylent Green.

Ditching her bowl on her unmade bunk, Max stood up and stretched. Her body felt wound-up like a coiled spring. Jitters for the day ahead, she imagined. Alec's lazy ass had better be out of bed, she thought as she headed out again.

Max headed for Jondy's apartment. She didn't think Alec had been assigned a room of his own. He never seemed to have a shortage of buxom bimbos falling all over him. She just wished one of them wasn't her doppelganger.

Max barged through the door. Her eyes narrowed as she took in the scene. Alec was draped across the bed, fully clothed at least, resting his head on his hand and staring across at Jondy, similarly positioned on the other cot. There was no sign of Siren.

To his credit, Alec didn't seem particularly concerned that she'd caught him puppy-dogging his eyes at a total stranger. He casually moved himself into a sitting position and stretched his arms and legs as though he hadn't moved from that position all night. Max folded her arms impatiently, and stared at the side of Alec's head, willing him to read her thoughts. Alec, of course, was oblivious.

Proving the age old belief that the female of the species was smarter than the male, Jondy stood up abruptly.

"That's my cue again. I'll just let you two talk," she muttered uncomfortably. She passed Max on the way to the door. Before exiting, she turned, uncertainty on her lips, "You'll say goodbye?"

Alec finally moved his head. She recognized the look in his eyes since it had so often been mirrored in her own: bittersweet regret, "Yeah. I'll find you."

Max was momentarily side-tracked by the uncomfortable feeling that she was an intruder. It wasn't a common occurrence around Alec. He was usually the spare tyre in any of her interactions. The moment passed. Her anger flared.

"She knows we're leaving! What else did you tell her?"

Alec sighed tiredly. There were dark shadows under his eyes. "You've got to give a little to get a little. You want to save the civs?"

"Oh very strategic. So you tell her we're leaving, and she tells your bogeyman half. How is it gonna to help us to be locked up as playthings?"

"She won't tell him," he stated simply.

"How can you trust someone you don't even know?"

Alec fixed her with a level stare.

Max looked away first, "Fine. But I hope you got enough info out of her to get everyone out of this mess."

"I did."

He stood up and retrieved his jacket from the back of the chair in front of the room's desk. He pulled his jacket on slowly, mind obviously anywhere but on Max.

"Well?" she puffed.

He shrugged, "We kick down the damn door and tell them to make a run for it."

"That's _it_?" she almost yelled.

"Some of them might make it. I got nothing else. This army's moving come nightfall and they consider their livestock a top priority."

"They're humans, not cows Alec!"

"You think I'm unaware of that?" his voice was dangerously low, never a good sign.

Max forced herself to calm down, "I'm sorry, I know this isn't you fault. I just…" She let the words taper off. How could she explain her frustration? Problems kept surfacing, but they didn't seem able to solve any, least of all their own.

"We do what we can. That's all anyone's allowed."

Max smiled ruefully, "Do I have to like it?"

Alec shook his head, "If I ever start to, I'll let you in on the secret."

Max sat on the nearest cot, "So where do we go from-?"

Both transgenics sharply turned their heads at the sound of gunfire. Lots of it. The duo sped to the nearest window, each taking a side. There were loud shouts coming from the direction of the storm of bullets. Eerily, the city itself was silent. Zooming in, Max caught her first sight of the city's attackers.

"Guess the human army has finally made an appearance," she mused. "And look, they have sweet, little old-fashioned human bigots along for good measure."

"Bastard snake," Alec hissed.

"Uh random," Max perked an eyebrow at him. He nodded straight ahead. Max moved over to join him, peering over his shoulder. There, a few blocks away… White and a full contingent of battle-ready Phalanx.

"Why aren't they attacking?" Max frowned.

"They're letting the pawns try and thin the lines before the real fight begins. Dumb saps probably think they stand a chance."

Max paled at the realization that Alec was right. The humans would be slaughtered. The Familiars probably thought the whole damn thing was amusing.

Alec moved back from the window. He leaned against the wall for a moment and closed his eyes, "We do what we can. How much time we got?"

Max pulled out the timer. "A couple of hours."

"You up for a fight?"

"Sure, but who the hell are we fighting?"

He straightened, "I don't know about you, but I'd like to slap ol' Amesy around." He shrugged at her look, "Fine, anyone that gets in our way. You wanted a way to save people, here it is."

Max nodded grimly, "Nothing says big giant distraction like World War Three."

Max didn't believe in dilly-dallying around when there were lives at stake. She moved to the door.

"You coming?" she queried when she realized that Alec wasn't following.

"I'll meet you there."

Max frowned at him. He didn't look her in the eye. With a jolt, Max remembered what he'd said to Jondy. He was going to find her. Of all the times for Alec to betray his own common sense.

She'd tried to stay clear of any emotional entanglements on this world; it was so much easier because their counterparts were nothing like the ones they knew; yet Alec – Alec? – had somehow grown attached to one of her siblings.

"Okay, fine," she shook her head. "Don't be late."

"I've got your back," he gave a bemused smile.

"That's not what I was worried about," she shrugged as she left him behind.

Alec waited a few moments until he was sure Max had left. He didn't need her to know what he was about to do. It was infinitely better if she never knew. The first secret, of course, was thievery. Reaching out, he snagged Siren's book and pocketed it. He wasn't about to let Max get her hopes up – or fears realized – before he knew what the hell any of it meant. They had too many unknowns as it was.

He headed out into the hallway. The city was still silent except for the ruckus the humans were making. The quiet before the storm. He could almost feel the temperature dropping around him.

He moved through corridors, barely conscious of any other presences, but he knew they were somewhere. Waiting. He just wished they were waiting in plain sight. He had a very simple question that needed answering.

Creeping from one building into the next, he finally got his wish. A kid with black eyes and elongated talons for fingers crossed his path. He grabbed his shoulder.

"Weapons?"

The kid sneered, "Why would anyone need those?"

"Pipe down Scrappy-Doo. Just take me to a damn gun or whatever the hell passes for one around here."

The kid snarled but glumly led him away. They didn't go far.

"This is the stuff we take from them," he pointed into a room no bigger than a rock star's closet. As soon as Alec entered the room, the kid skedaddled away, off to do whatever creepy thing creepy kids did.

Alec wasn't happy with the selection. There were mostly knives, pitchforks (actual pitchforks!), rebars, side-arms with no ammo, a shotgun – again with no arrow – and one of those slick sporty bows with a few of arrows lying on the ground beside it. Alec hefted up the green monstrosity. Where was the pride and workmanship? Alec had some appreciation of the old and understated long-bow that required true skill to master. It reminded him of the good ol' days at Manticore, where they'd dump them in the woods for a couple of weeks and expect them to both fend for themselves and compete against pretty much anyone they encountered, regardless of whether it was a former comrade or friend.

Alec shouldered the bow and strapped the ammunition across his chest. He then took off running. He had a limited window of time before Max wondered where he was and came looking. He wasn't worried about her. The human corral was in the opposite direction of the fighting. A direction in which he was currently heading.

His feet barely paused as he rushed into the open. It was supposed to be early morning; instead it was dark… and misty. This world was whacked.

He blurred through the low-lying curls of white mist that scattered in his wake. Despite his speed, he knew that he was leaving a clear trail. Which was exactly his plan. In the corner of his eye, he saw humans taking random shots at nothingness. The shots were usually followed by screams – theirs.

Alec vaulted up and onto the fire escape of a nearby building. He rapidly ascended to the roof. Keeping low, he nocked an arrow. He reached the edge of the roof, before pulling himself upright. He let the arrow loose, his instincts telling him all he needed to know. He allowed himself the great pleasure of standing still and watching his handiwork unfold.

Ames White had barely a moment to glance down at the arrow protruding from his chest before he toppled to the ground. Alec smirked as the contingent of Familiars all turned and peered at him. He doubted their eyesight was as good as his, but there'd be no mistaking the defiant stance of an archer that had just brought them into play. Alec flipped them off for good measure. They charged forward, forgetting their carefully constructed plan to wait it out.

Two superpowered groups duking it out wouldn't have time to notice a couple hundred humans slipping out of their midst. It wasn't a perfect plan, but Alec thought it was good enough.

Max wasn't lost. She was just… turned around.

Where the hell had all this mist and darkness come from anyway? It was supposed to be breakfast time on a formerly clear, sunny day. The air around her had chilled. She searched through the thick veil around her. She was sure she was close to the corral.

Voices penetrated the muffled mist. A familiar voice drew her away from her quest.

"No, please. I'll be good. I'll do anything you want," a woman's voice cried, the terror apparent in the way her voice caught on her breath.

"Oh you'll be good al'right darling," a man laughed.

Max kept her back against the wall as she rounded a corner.

Siren was on all fours in front of half a dozen human men. They were vigilantes, but at least one of them wore a soldier's uniform too. Max felt sickened by the expressions they wore. Siren's gauzy dress had slipped open at her thigh, revealing more than enough skin to spur the lecherous tendencies the men were already portraying.

One man, the leader of the group, slackened his belt.

"Hold her down boys. You know how these freaks like to think above themselves."

Siren whimpered. Max's lips raised into a snarl as two other men fell out of the group and moved to flank Siren's shaking body. Max readied herself to attack—

The leader reached Siren—

Siren launched herself at him. Palms splayed, she pressed her hands against his face as she brought him to the ground. She was already off him by the time he hit the ground with a loud, staggered grunt. She had the two flankers by the wrists next. Each let out guttural moans and fell to the ground.

The remaining three took aim with their weapons—

Max blurred toward them and disarmed two before Siren gripped the third by the neck and bodily flung him to the ground. Max turned in time to see her straddle him and run her hands up under his shirt. The two Max had dealt with turned and ran as they saw their compatriot writhing beneath Siren. She had a playful smile on her face.

The other men Siren had touched were crawling on hands and knees towards them. Max brought up her fists, but she soon realized that there was no point. Now they were the ones trembling. Their fingers scrabbled at the hems of her dress; mewing and moaning pitifully for her to turn her attentions on them. She smiled at each equally, a sensual smile that made promises she didn't seem likely to keep. Their bodies were the biggest clue of all to their strange behaviour. It was hard to miss. Max now knew exactly what it was that Alec was not immune too. Siren's touch truly was deadly.

Siren looked at Max levelly, "Would you like to play with my puppies?"

She patted the head of the nearest man, the one that had minutes before tried to violate her.

"They don't live very long," she said sadly.

Max said nothing and stepped backwards into the shadows, away from the moaning and purring and uncomfortable ideas that had just been placed into her head.

"Max!" Alec called from a short distance away.

She followed the direction of his voice. He was alone, and from the thin coat of perspiration coating his face, he must have exerted himself to get there.

"I thought you would have had them out by now," he said as she joined him. She mumbled something that sounded like an excuse under her breath and let him lead the way. Alec didn't seem to want to waste any time. He barely let the corral door stop his foot as he crashed through it.

The humans all stared at them with frozen faces as well as frozen bodies.

"This is the part where you run for your lives," Alec waved them toward the shattered door behind him.

When they didn't react, Max stepped through beside him, "Move it people! Bip bip bip!"

The two transgenics moved the side and ushered people out. The humans were slow on the uptake but they soon caught on and rushed through the opening they were providing.

"Come on, come on, come on," Max whispered as she watched the surroundings. The impatience she felt was mirrored in Alec's actions as he took a child of seven or eight from its mother and carried her with the tired mother running beside him. Max ran out alongside the crowd as the last of the humans filtered out of their prison.

The humans acted, and Max was ashamed to be thinking it, like a herd of cattle. Following the leader, regardless of where that lead might take them. Max blurred to the front of the group. Most humans shied from her. She didn't have time to feel pity or shame. She heard a scream from direction they were heading in.

"Not this way," she shouted and pushed the leaders in the opposite direction. The group flocked to the follow.

"Left, left, left," Alec yelled from the back of the proceeding. Max turned her head just in time to see Familiars rush out from an alley way. The humans screamed and turned away, some scattered into the darkness, but most were listening to Alec and Max.

Max barely had time to worry about the Familiars when she saw them one by one pulled down into the mist. That mist suddenly seemed a lot more threatening. Max searched for what she considered the safest route, but she couldn't see past the soup.

A portion of their herd screamed and darted sideways as a strangled scream was rent from somewhere close. Max sensed their fear acutely. She couldn't see or hear the enemy; the powerlessness was terrifying to her.

Another of their group screamed and a great many ducked. Something had plucked one of their number upward. Something that flew. Max had had about enough of this reality. It was bad enough knowing something might be hiding below.

The duo steered the group through the city, taking countless twists and turns to avoid any fighting. The humans were running out of steam.

"Shit!" Alec barked. "Here, take her."

He shoved the girl into the arms of a man near him.

"You keep going. Don't look back. Don't stop. Go go go!" he ordered and fell back to join Max, yelling at the humans to follow the front line.

Like a nightmare about bugs, Familiars, transgenics and human armies swarmed in from different corners around them. The humans were so terrified they were fighting anything that moved, even if it was themselves. The Familiars and transgenics were solely fighting each other, and taking out any human stupid enough to get in the way.

Max saw Castor leap out from the mist and pull a Familiar into his dark embrace. She felt a blunt knife of heat in her belly at the sight of him biting into another Familiar who willingly submitted. Other creatures bounded out of the nothingness. Monsters from fairy tale and myth. She had to pinch herself to make sure she was real and not watching some hammed up fantasy flick.

"Max," Alec warned. A group of Familiars had broken away from the war zone and were heading straight for them. Max looked around her, the human prisoners were still trying to filter through the narrow avenues the battle was leaving them. She looked at Alec. They fell in beside each other and advanced to the fight. They just needed to buy some time for the humans.

Her fists connected with a Familiar. It was a relief to feel the kick the Familiar levelled at her head. It was the same as back home. Almost manageable. She kept her back close to Alec's. They fought as though they'd been doing it together all their lives. How strange that they could complement each other so well when she had thought for months that they were two worlds apart.

Max heard a grunt from Alec and turned to see one Familiar grip him by the throat. The Familiar recognized the face. He signaled to a nearby companion before Alec head-butted him and broke free. Max didn't know how they did it, but the damage seemed to be sown. The rest of the Familiars broke away from their fights and were heading straight for them.

"Okay, maybe having the face of their leader is really not a great idea," Alec gasped rubbing his neck.

Max looked behind her. Most of the humans were out of the way. It was out of their hands now. She'd lost track of time, but she didn't think they had long now.

"All we need to do now is stay not dead," she gibed as she took off running. Alec was beside her as they headed down the nearest alley way. The Familiars were hot on their trail, and by the sounds of battle around them, in front, alongside and diagonal to them too.

"Man, familiars must breed like bunnies in this world," Alec remarked as he ran dangerously close to a Familiar making a grab for him. "Please tell me the big swirly is about to appear."

"Not yet," Max cried as she leapt over a Familiar trying to dive into a Rugby tackle, mistaking her for the ball.

"Great," Alec droned, right before he was pulled down by three Familiars coming at him from three different directions. Max pulled herself to a halt and ran back to help him. She narrowly missed the bullet directed at her head by one of them. She guessed they'd finally gotten tired of hand to hand. Another Familiar pulled out a gun and pointed it at the back of Alec's head while he was held down—

"Alec!" Max yelled.

He launched upward trying to break free—

"Need a hand?" Jondy's voice came from… somewhere.

Denser white smoke wrapped itself around the Familiar pointing the gun at Alec. A moment later, Jondy's fist grabbed that hand and broke it. The crack made Alec flinch. He turned his head just as Jondy reached down to pull the Familiar off of him. She threw the Familiar against the nearest wall. He sailed across the space between and met the bricks with a loud thump. Max swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. One minute she was staring at Jondy, the next, she saw nothing but smoke and heard the loud snap of a neck being broken. She was suddenly glad Jondy was on their side.

Coalescing again, Jondy helped Alec to his feet.

"Thanks," he rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess these guys don't really stand a chance."

Jondy shrugged. "Not anymore. We offered them a deal. They just broke it. By the time Castor's through, there won't be a single Familiar who isn't chained up and begging."

"What about the humans?" Max asked quietly.

Jondy shook her head, "They'll try and fight us, like they always do, and they'll lose. We won't let any more of us die."

Max nodded. Castor had said as much to her. They were willing to fight for their futures.

The three transgenics turned at the sound of at least a dozen heavy footsteps running their way.

"They're not ours," Jondy mused.

Alec straightened into a fighting stance beside Jondy. Max pulled the timer out of her pocket. They were almost out of time.

"Alec," she held up the timer.

Eyes widening, he turned to Jondy, "You can come with us."

Max's own eyes widened at that. Jondy's eyes seemed sad, "My world must seem pretty crappy compared to yours, but it's still my world," she shook her head. "Now there's going to be two beautiful things that my world won't have any more."

"I—" Alec started.

Jondy pulled him closer as she lifted her lips to his. It was raw and uncontained, and Max could see that Alec was shocked. Shock that soon became something else. Max turned away. The intimacy almost too private to bear witness too. She allowed the formation of the portal to distract her.

"Goodbye, Alec. Thank you for giving me a glimpse of him again."

Max saw Jondy's face for only a moment before the white smoke replaced her again. There were unshed tears in her eyes and such tender softness that she still felt guilty seeing it. Surprisingly, she saw something similar reflected in Alec's face too. Her heart burned painfully against her chest.

The smoke sped down the alley toward the emerging figures of the Familiars, blocking the entire way. Jondy appeared before them, already engaging in the dance of a lifetime. Max pulled Alec with her to stop him from going to her aid. She practically pushed him through the portal. She hated that this couldn't be real. The only real constant they had was each other.

Tomorrow would be a different day.

TBC.-

* * *

Please, see profile for an announcement.


	5. Chapter 4: The World where everyone is s

**Chapter **4  
**Author**: Wildsky  
**Betas**: ?  
**Rating**: PG13… *shrugs*  
**Disclaimer**: Neither Dark Angel nor Sliders belong to me or any of the Nuns (although I know many of us wish we owned Alec… Mmmh, Alec). Although the characters Micah, Luz, Addy (which are only named in the story) actually don't belong to me, but the names do… :D

* * *

**Chapter 4: The World where everyone is somebody else, aka MIRROR, MIRROR**

Max and Alec hit the ground running, the wormhole spiraling to a close in their wake in a cascade of shimmering blue and white. The two X5s staggered, stumbling awkwardly in an effort to stall their forward momentum.

Trying to slow down from a sprint without hitting anything when your head and stomach are both performing somersaults is not as easy as it looks.

Max's shoulder collided with something that felt suspiciously like a brick wall and she rolled against it, her jacket scraping against the coarse surface as she steadied herself. A few feet ahead of her, Alec skidded to a halt and lowered himself into a crouch, taking a moment to get his equilibrium back.

Max dragged in a deep breath and shook herself. That ride had been particularly rough.

"You alive?" she asked tersely.

"No, Max, as it happens I'm deceased," he deadpanned as he straightened up. "I've been zombiefied and condemned to wander each and every universe as your brainless puppet."

Max didn't dignify his comment with a response. She chose instead to concentrate on their surroundings. After all, what right did he have to be sarcastic? She wasn't the one who'd been making out with her sister while the egg-timer counted down to zero.

As stupid as it sounded, that was where she drew the line. Friends – or whatever she and Alec were – were not supposed to stick their tongue down the throats of interdimensional doubles of their friend's siblings. It was a rule.

"Well… no demon-human wars, so I'd say we've traded up," she decided, glancing back over her shoulder to inspect the damage the wall had done to the leather. She sighed as she saw the pucker-marks in the black material.

Great. Just fan-freakin'-tastic.

"Uhuh."

Max cast a sidelong glance at Alec, a little underwhelmed by his response. The man himself and his non-stop smart-ass commentary was pretty much the only constant she had to cling to in this insanity. She really needed to find a world with an Alec who would just obey her every unspoken whim without question. She could totally live with that.

All the training. None of the trouble-making tendencies. Like Alec-Lite. Diet X5. All the taste and half the calories.

Max wrinkled her nose at that thought. That wasn't quite the direction she'd intended to take with the idea.

Tasting Alec was definitely not on the menu. Ever.

"So how long do we have?" Alec asked, glancing towards her.

Max obligingly checked the PUT device and grimaced.

"Twenty-two hours," she replied. "Come on." With that, she walked off before giving him a chance to reply. She recognized Terminal City but there was no sign of battle, no smoky haze obscuring her vision in the early morning light. No spank-wanking vampires chowing down or half-dressed porn star wannabes wreaking havoc.

_I can work with this_, Max decided.

"Do you think this might be it?" Max asked hopefully, gazing around for any overt sign that anything was different. So far, so good. No wolf men. No humans in pens, milling around like cattle waiting around for the slaughter.

This world actually looked sane, which was a start.

Alec shrugged, looking around with curious green-gold eyes. He wasn't prepared to get her hopes up in any way, shape or form. Not until he had more information. The last thing they needed was to get into trouble right off the bat like they had last time.

"Let's check out the Needle," Alec suggested, striding ahead before Max could reply. She glared at his back, irritated with him for choosing to morph into sensible-Alec at a moment when she would have taken any excuse to smack him up the side of the head. Irrational, yes, but still true.

It was stress. Clones aside, Max had never anticipated coming face-to-face with herself in such a fashion. Now in the space of three days she'd met Manticore Max, Feminist 452 and Bimbo Barbie. It was enough to make anyone cranky.

With these grim thoughts swirling around in her head, Max finally started walking in his wake, trying really hard to keep her hopes in check until they could verify that they were indeed home. It wouldn't be the first time that the universe had thrown her a curve ball.

Runes, anyone?

Max sighed. The Space Needle was three sectors away and they still didn't have a decent mode of transport. The only thing world-hopping had going for it was that it was damn good exercise.

The hair on the back of her neck prickled and her eyes swiveled to the side as the feeling of being watched rolled over her. After ten years on the run, a girl learned to trust her gut about that kind of thing. Alec must have sensed it too because he slowed his stride so she could catch up to him. Strength in numbers and all that stuff.

"You see anyone?" she murmured.

"Nope," Alec replied quietly as she fell into step with him.

"Our kind?"

"Maybe."

"White's kind?"

"With our track record…?" Alec slanted a rueful look in her direction.

"Now that's a helluva thing to say on your own turf," a new voice called out. Max and Alec whirled towards the sound, simultaneously dropping into a combat stance as a hulking figure emerged from the shadows and dashed all their hopes at the same time.

Max saw Alec's jaw drop out of the corner of her eye and hers wasn't far behind.

"What are you doing in this neck o' the woods, Princess?" Joshua asked, lowering his shotgun.

_Princess?_ Max could only stare, wide-eyed, as the dog-man puffed on a cigar, his long brown hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. _Oh… my… God_…

"Joshua?" she finally croaked.

"Ain't often you're speechless," the transhuman chuckled. "Cat got your tongue?"

"Uh…"

"Rough night," Alec interjected, shaking himself out of his shock long enough to make a vaguely intelligent response. He decided to take a punt. "You know, burnin' the candle at both ends."

Joshua snorted. "She finally teachin' you to loosen up a bit, huh?" he replied, bringing the shotgun up so that the barrel was laid across his shoulder. "'Bout damn time."

Max gave her follow X5 a quizzical look, as confused by such a statement as Alec was. No-one had ever accused him of being dull to her knowledge.

"Right… so what brings you out this way, big guy?" Alec asked, hoping to settle into a somewhat normal conversation. Yet the dog-man gave Alec a slightly curious glance, leaving the X5 to wonder what he'd said that warranted a reaction, muted as it was.

"Perimeter sweep," Joshua shrugged, taking another draw from his cigar and blowing out a smoke ring. "Had a few ordinaries throwin' trash over the fences earlier."

Max nodded, trying and failing to not stare at Joshua. "Did they give up or did you scare 'em off?"

Joshua grinned, flashing his canine teeth. "I mighta helped 'em along a bit."

"You didn't hurt them, did you?" Max asked tentatively. She'd enough anti-human brutality I Castor's universe to last a lifetime.

Joshua regarded her speculatively. "Since when are you the killjoy in our menagerie? That's usually his job." He gestured towards Alec and chewed on the end of his cigar.

Alec raised an eyebrow but decided to roll with it. "Well, all right, as the resident killjoy, I'll bite: did you send 'em packing in one piece?"

"Yeah, yeah, do no harm and all that crap." Joshua rolled his eyes. "But you'll be singin' a different tune when they figure out we're not some junkie's hallucination and start throwing firebombs over the fence instead."

Max and Alec exchanged a look that spoke volumes. It appeared that some things weren't so different in this reality after all.

"So, uh, Joshua…" Max began, pushing the weirdness to the back of her mind for the moment. "Don't s'pose you've got a phone book around here somewhere?"

* * *

"This is officially freakier than Castor and Siren playing hide and seek for runes," Max muttered to Alec as they entered headquarters. "I thought nothing could top vampires and werewolves but this…this is just wrong."

"No argument from me," Alec replied in the same vein.

Several people they knew had passed them on their way in but none of them had reacted as the two X5s would have expected. Those who would normally ignore them cheerfully greeted them while those who could usually be counted on to chat happily had shunned them on sight.

It was like someone had thrown the world into a bag, shaken everything around and when they tipped it out it was all mixed up.

"Hey guys!" Dix enthused, waving from where he was working at a computer terminal. The monocled transhuman quickly went back to his work. Max returned the wave weakly while Alec flashed a grin that died just as quickly, like a shooting star. Both were acutely aware of the way a few people gave them strange looks.

"What the hell, Alec?" Max said from between gritted teeth.

"How am I supposed to know?" he replied quietly.

"You're supposed to be the sociology expert," Max reminded him, folding her arms across her chest.

"I must have missed Interdimensional Relations 101," Alec snarked in return. "It's not like this gig came with an instruction manual."

"So use that big X5 brain of yours and figure it out," Max huffed. "I'm sure it could use the exercise."

"And what exactly are you contributing besides attitude?" Alec retorted, pinning her with a quelling glance.

"I'm the one keeping my eye on the prize and not the booty of every female we run across," Max shot back. "Try keeping the blood flowing in the right direction, okay?"

"Do you think you could stop obsessing about the lower half of my body for a second, Max? If it's not my ass, it's my – Ow!"

"That's for thinking for even _half_ a second that I have any interest in your ass or anything else," Max said primly, ignoring the glare Alec shot her way as he rubbed the back of his head. "The only ass I care about is Logan's."

"Which you made abundantly clear when you dumped it," Alec muttered. "I'm sure he's feelin' the love, Maxie."

"Don't call me Maxie," she hissed.

"Whatever you say, 452," Alec shrugged.

"You –"

"Mac?" Joshua waved a hand in front of Alec's face to get his attention and jerked his thumb at the computer screen. "You're on."

Alec managed to wipe the blank look of confusion off his face with admirable speed, all things considered. But that didn't stop him from glancing back at Max and mouthing '_Mac?_' in complete bewilderment. She just waved him on and followed a few feet behind.

Alec was expecting to see Logan's face on the screen. In their world, he was usually the only one who contacted Terminal City via a video feed. So when he recognized the person waiting to speak to him, he had to do a double-take.

Original Cindy smiled warmly at him, her normally wild hair tamed and pulled back. "How are you?"

"Uh… good… thanks," Alec replied, clearing his throat awkwardly as he tried not to stare. Cindy's face fell slightly and Max craned her neck to get a better look without ending up in the picture herself. "How are you?"

"Warm and dry," Cindy sighed. "Can't complain."

"That's good," Alec said simply, searching for something to say to the rather wistful look in Cindy's eyes as she gazed at him. It was a little unnerving.

"Just thought I'd check in, make sure everything was okay," Cindy offered, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"Yeah, well, we're fine," Alec assured her blithely, hoping it was near enough to the truth in this reality that it wouldn't raise suspicion. Cindy blinked.

"Okay," she said stiffly and Alec got the distinct impression that he'd just unwittingly kicked a puppy or something. He stifled a sigh; not having a clue about what was going on was getting old real fast.

"Okay, I'll see ya," Alec offered, wanting to keep it short. Long conversations offered too much of an opportunity to trip up. As it was, Alec wasn't terribly comfortable with standing in the middle of Terminal City Headquarters, wondering when his double was going to show up.

Cindy looked stung. "Okay… bye."

"Bye."

Alec stepped down from the computer terminal and found Max shaking her head at him.

"What?" he challenged her.

"Well, that looked awkward," Joshua observed, still chewing on the end of his cigar.

"Thanks for stating the obvious, Josh," Alec replied wryly.

"Hey, you're the one who broke up with her," Joshua said as if he was discussing the weather.

Max grabbed Alec by the arm before he could reply and steered him away from Joshua, then pointed towards another area of the room. "Look at that."

Alec followed her gaze and spotted Mole…

Painting?

Max led the charge, pulling Alec along with her and gave him a swat on the arm that earned her an annoyed look before he obediently opened his mouth.

"Hey, Mole," Alec tried and watched a grin wreath the lizard-man's face.

"Hey, Little Fella," Mole replied gently. "Talk to Cynthia?"

Alec nodded, his mind moving at a million miles an hour as he added up everything they'd seen since their arrival. "Yeah, she's good," he replied smoothly. _Oh, this is just_ perfect…

"Misses Mac," Mole told him. "Mac misses her too."

_That's it. We just hit ten on the Richter scale of weirdness_. _I broke up with Cindy… uh, Cynthia?_ _And Joshua called me Mac…_

"Yeah, you got it," Alec replied automatically, running his eyes over what Mole was working on. "Whatcha got there, Big Fella?"

"It's a flag," Mole informed him, beaming at his masterpiece. "Our flag."

"Yeah, 'cause we're gonna need a flag when our transhuman drill team is marching down Fifth Avenue in the Saint Paddy's Day parade," Dix sniggered.

"Let's not forget half-time at those Seahawks games," Luke chimed in.

"Hey, cut it out," Max snapped, frowning at the pair. Even Alec was giving them a look that plainly read 'shut up'. "You heard enough yet?" Max asked under her breath.

"Oh yeah," Alec agreed quickly and clapped Mole on the shoulder. "I'll, uh, see you round, okay?"

"See Mac later," Mole agreed.

With that, the two X5s made a beeline for the door.

"Hey, where are you two going?" Joshua called after them.

"Work!" Max shouted the first thing that came to mind, closing the door behind them.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Alec asked hastily as soon as they'd cleared the building.

"As frightening as that is, I think I am," Max admitted, her expression a mixture of horror and dismay.

"Mole is Joshua and Joshua is Mole," Alec said aloud, "and they're calling me Mac."

"And you apparently just broke up with Cindy."

"Does that mean she's straight here or did I pull a lesbian?" Alec mused, suddenly looking curious. Max promptly whacked him across the shoulder.

"Concentrate!" she chided him.

"I'm multi-tasking," Alec defended himself.

"So multi-task about something useful."

"I will if you will."

Max squashed down the urge to grind her teeth in frustration. "Three worlds and we're still not home. How long is this going to take?"

"Left my crystal ball at home," Alec quipped. "I guess we'll just have to see how this plays out."

"I'll tell you how this is going to play out: if you don't shut up, I'll kill you."

"You asked the question."

"It was rhetorical!"

"Max, if you don't calm down, you're going to have a stroke or something," Alec cautioned her. "I'm not carrying your ass through however-many universes we get stuck in, so take a breath already."

Max clenched her jaw but didn't reply. She hated it when she wanted to rant and he turned into the voice of reason. He'd only ever snapped at her once for bitching at him and that had been at Joshua's dinner party. He hadn't lost his temper with her since.

"Let's go," Max finally said grimly.

"Go where?" Alec replied.

"Where we meant to go in the first place," Max groused. "The Space Needle. Maybe we can just wait it out up there."

"Twenty-one hours sitting on the Space Needle?"

"Well, how do you propose that we find an answer to how this stupid egg-timer works?" Max exclaimed, waving the object in question in his face. "From what we've seen, Mallory isn't going to be who we need in this dimension. He'll have switched lives with someone and we have no idea who!"

"Point taken," Alec conceded. "But twenty-one hours? Max, there's gotta be something we can do in the meantime."

"Like what?"

"Well, if everyone's switched like we thought, maybe OC can lend a hand. I've been thinking and maybe she's Eyes Only here."

"After your little brush-off earlier? I'm sure she'd _love_ to help."

"How was I supposed to know I'd dated her?" Alec squawked.

"Oh, I don't know, Mister Suave, maybe if you'd used your head for a second and paid attention to the way she was looking at you –"

"That's pretty rich coming from Miss I-Refuse-To-Acknowledge-That-My-Brother-Has-A-Crush-On-Me –"

"That was none of your business!"

"My business or not, it was pretty damn obvious."

"It's not the same thing."

"How convenient."

Max gritted her teeth. "Fine. We'll go and see Cindy. If you're right, she has a better chance of finding our physicist than we do on our own."

"Agreed… and we can stop by Jam Pony on the way."

"Why?" Max asked, not seeing the point in that at all.

"Aren't you curious?"

Max paused. "About what?"

"Well, so far my life in this dimension looks a helluva lot like yours," Alec reasoned. "Don't you want to know who you are in this world?"

"You want to go looking for me?" Max looked skeptical.

"And me too," he added as an afterthought. "If we can't do anything constructive here, we can at least check out how things work. How many people do you think have had the chance to jump realities like this?"

"I don't think it really matters if they can't get home," she argued.

"Unless their physicists were shot in the chest by snake cult whack-jobs, I think anyone else who did this would be in better shape than we are."

"And that's comforting how?"

"Where there's life, there's hope?" he offered.

"Nice philosophy, grasshopper, but how 'bout a little realism?"

"Yeah, cause this whole situation is what we would have called realistic a week ago," Alec drawled. "Think of it this way. Out of the Maxes we've met so far, you're still the best of the group. Worst case scenario; you can't complain as much about your life sucking."

"And what about you?" Max said, turning the conversation around on him. "What if we run into a version of you that humps women's' legs at parties or something along the way?"

"Then I guess you'll just have to learn to appreciate my charm, Maxie," Alec grinned, as irrepressible as ever. "Let's just swing by on our way through. It's on the way to the Needle and Fogel Towers anyway."

Max rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Let's just get going."

"I knew you'd see it my way."

"No, you just had a point about spending over twenty hours together on the Needle. I might pitch your ass over the side."

* * *

The barren streets of Terminal City quickly gave way to the hustle and bustle of people and markets and bike messengers weaving in and out of dilapidated traffic. Max chewed her lower lip as they progressed, ears and eyes peeled for any sign of trouble. Transgenic-hating graffiti sprayed across walls, news reports condemning X-series soldiers for thefts and deaths. It all seemed like their reality.

How could everything be so similar yet so different?

They scaled the fences surrounding the sector checkpoints with laughable ease and finally found themselves standing in the shadow of the building across the street from Jam Pony.

"Do you hear our voices in there?" Alec asked, listening intently

"No. Could be a good chance to check the place out."

"As long as our twins don't show up."

"Only one of us should go in," Max decided, peering around the corner with a slight frown marring her features. "It'll be easier for one of us to hide than both of us."

"All right, you stay here," Alec replied, moving to step out from behind Max but she grabbed hold of his arm and smacked him across the back of the head.

"Ow! What the hell was that for?"

"Don't be an idiot. I'm going in."

"Why do you get to go in first?" Alec protested, rubbing his scalp where she'd hit him. "You want Normal busting your chops?"

"No but I don't want him following you around like a lovesick puppy either," Max replied acerbically.

"Aw, Maxie… you _do_ care," Alec said, laying a dramatic hand over his heart.

Max just rolled her eyes. "We're supposed to be keeping a low profile while we check this out."

"Hey, I can do low profile," Alec defended himself, folding his arms across his chest.

"Riiight…" Max drawled sceptically. "That's why you walked around for months flashing that barcode and decided cage-fighting was the best way to stay off the radar."

"I wanted to have some fun. So sue me," Alec shrugged. "It's not like Normal's gonna lay off if you walk in there instead of me. It just means there'll be more yelling."

"For thirty seconds _if_ he manages to catch me and then he'll back off," Max pointed out. "If you go in, he'll be kissing your ass until the timer hits zero. And that's _if_ he's still the same as he is in our world."

"Wasn't stealth the aim of the game here?" Alec reminded her. "I could hula into that place around noon and still talk my way out of it. No harm, no foul. People love me."

"Unless there's another Alec in there already getting the gladiator-treatment," Max replied, giving him an amused glance as he grimaced at the reminder of Normal's rather exotic muscle-rubbing fantasies. "Two Alec's would be way too much for Normal or whoever the boss here is to handle. We want to avoid him, not kill him."

"But what a way to go," he smirked, then stopped, his face falling slightly. "Okay. That came out wrong."

Max sniggered and stepped out from behind the building. She heard Alec grumble slightly but he wisely refrained from trying to argue any further as she made her way towards the entrance, scanning her surroundings continuously for any sign of her twin.

So far, so good.

Sky rode out of the doorway with a head full of dredlocks and waved at her, flashing a friendly smile in her direction. She nodded in acknowledgment and waved back half-heartedly. Steeling herself, Max stepped over the threshold.

And let out the breath she'd unconsciously been holding.

No sign of anyone Max or Alec-ish.

Buoyed, the brunette kept walking, taking in her new surroundings.

"Okay…" Max muttered under her breath. "So far, so good."

She made her way to the lockers and quickly scanned the tags. Several caught her attention.

Mac. Alex. Reagan. Logan…

_Logan?_

"Delivery for Sector Three!"

Max jumped, startled, and found a well-known face holding a package under her nose.

"Sketchy?" she blurted, taking in the gray trousers, horn-rimmed glasses and sweater vest.

"Sketchy?" he echoed, clearly puzzled. "What's that? Some kind of new fad you kids are into, Rock Star?"

_Rock Star?_ Max blinked_. I'm getting a migraine_…

"Logie, where the fire truck is Mac?" Sketchy demanded to know, shooting a sharp glance over her shoulder.

_Mac? Alec's double?_ Max wondered and then her brow creased as the rest sank in. _Logie?_

"He's gonna be here any second," a familiar voice replied. Max turned around and nearly swallowed her tongue as her eyes widened, almost bugging out at the sight that greeted her.

Logan Cale was standing in the middle of Jam Pony, his light brown hair flowing down over his shoulders, wearing a mesh shirt that she half-suspected belonged in the shop window of a blue-light specialty store. Her lips twitched and she stifled a cough.

_Okay, just stay cool_, she told herself, nearly strangling herself as she pursed her lips and tried to choke down a bout of totally inappropriate laughter. She turned her head in another direction but it was no good – the image was burned into her retinas. _Definitely _not_ home_. _Oh my God!_

Clearly Logan and Original Cindy had switched places.

She suddenly wished she had a camera. When she got back to her own world, she wanted to show Cindy what she'd seen. Her friend would never believe her otherwise.

"Ah, Calvin?" Max took a guess at his name, figuring it couldn't hurt to exploit her apparent standing in Sketchy's eyes in this universe, "I'm not feeling so hot…"

"Say no more," Sketchy replied and shoved the package at Logan. "Sector Three. Corner of Fairview and Ward. Bip!"

Max winced as Logan gave her an irked glance before accepting the box. How did Alec do that and get away with it? Most other riders would have gotten smacked across the head for pulling a stunt like that.

"Go home and rest up," Sketchy told her. "Can't have my best rider getting sick."

"Uh… right," she agreed lamely. "I will. Thanks."

"Rock Star," Sketchy murmured, patting her on the shoulder before scurrying away to berate yet more employees for offences both real and imagined. Max ducked away from the gesture, a little creeped out by the idea of him touching her.

_I don't think I want to know what I'm like here any more_, she thought in dismay.

"Alex."

It was the voice, not the name it uttered, that caught Max's attention to begin with. She glanced up, about to rebuke him for following her, when her brain intervened and pointed out that he was dressed differently. In a tidy black turtleneck to be precise... and rather flattering black leather pants.

Max was so accustomed to seeing him in jeans and casual shirt that opened at the collar that the contrast was rather stark. Her Alec was the epitome of cool, calm and charismatic when he wasn't being a pain in her ass.

This Alec radiated tension as he gazed down at her, his arms folded across his chest.

_This must be Mac._ _Wait a second… did he just call me Alex? Oh, hell no…_

"Uh… hey," she said lamely, hoping she could wing it long enough to get back outside with the phone book. She'd already met raving nymphomaniac and freaky priestess versions of herself. She really didn't want to run into whatever passed for her in this screwy universe.

Especially if it dressed like Logan.

"Got a job for you if you're interested," the double informed her. "The take's fifteen large each."

_Typical_, Max thought, relaxing as she stepped into familiar territory. Alec and money had always had a close relationship. _All right, so spit out it and let me get the hell outta here already_.

"Yeah?" She kept her tone light. She didn't want to invite unnecessary conversation.

"Yeah," Mac replied. "Some guy's got a stash of stolen paintings. Cynthia did some digging for me. She says they're worth a fortune."

_Oh hell no_, Max thought, shoulders slumping.

"So are you in?" he asked. Max nodded numbly. "Okay, I'll meet you tonight at eleven at the back of the old Hudson building. Bring the usual gear."

"Sure," she agreed, silently hoping her double wouldn't get into too much trouble for not showing up.

"You all right?" he asked, running his eyes over as if he wasn't sure what to make of her.

"I'm fine," she replied automatically and watched his eyebrow quirk suspiciously.

"You seem quiet," he pointed out. "You're never quiet unless something's wrong."

_I'm not? Uh oh._

"Your hair's straight. And since when do you dress like that?" he continued, bringing Max up short. She looked down at herself, frowning slightly at the accusation in his voice.

"Like what?" she asked, irrationally miffed. Considering the wild differences in both Logan's and Sketchy's fashion sense, she really shouldn't have been surprised by the question but still...

_Oh God… please don't tell me I dress like a two-dollar-hooker_, she pleaded inwardly. _I've had enough of clones that can't keep their clothes on! _

"You're not sick, are you?" he asked, reaching out to touch her forehead. Max ducked out from under his hand, batting it away. "You don't normally feel the cold."

_I knew it_, Max fumed. _I'm walking around in a bikini and heels in this universe, aren't I? Aren't I?_

"I just felt like toning it down today," she replied with a little more growl in her voice than she intended.

"_Alex_."

There was a clear warning in his tone.

"I'm okay," she assured him quickly, holding up her hands in surrender. "I promise."

He gave her a doubtful look but relented nonetheless, apparently mollified for the moment. "All right, I'll see you tonight. Don't be late."

"Eleven behind the Hudson," she repeated with a sigh. "I've got it."

"Good," he replied, making a face. "And take a shower before then, okay?"

Mac turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Max staring after him with her mouth hanging open, insulted and mortified that he'd felt it was necessary to comment on the way she smelled. Sweaty pursuits aside, it wasn't her fault she hadn't had access to a shower or a bath for the better part of three days. She sniffed at herself experimentally and wrinkled her delicate nose.

Okay, so she wasn't exactly exuding a rosy perfume but still…

Max smacked a fist into Mac's locker, imagining that it was his head, and nodded in satisfaction when the red-painted metal bent beneath the force.

Satisfied that she'd seen as much as any girl could reasonably expect to deal with, Max turned to saunter towards the door and recognized yet another familiar voice… though she certainly didn't recognize the clothes she was wearing. Or the hairstyle. Or the wire-rimmed glasses.

Original Cindy – or was that Cynthia McEachin? – was walking into Jam Pony in a gray pencil skirt, a perfectly pressed white blouse and elegant high heels. Her hair, which Max had never seen as any less than a riot of ebony curls, was straight as a poker and pulled back from her face in a French roll.

And the warm, wistful look on her face was directed at Mac.

_Well, at least she saved me and Alec the trip_, Max thought wryly.

Max's expression became thoughtful as she looked from Cynthia to the X5 male who was staring at the chocolate-skinned woman with a mixture of reluctance and hope.

"Hey you," Mac said with a quiet smile as Cynthia reached him. They didn't reach out to touch each other. His hands stayed firmly anchored in his pockets.

_That isn't what I act like with Logan, is it?_ Max thought.

"You seemed pretty weird on the phone earlier, so I thought I'd drop by," Cynthia explained and Max grimaced. She hadn't thought that Alec's little talk earlier would bite them in the backside quite that fast. Granted, he hadn't had any idea that he was talking to his double's ex-girlfriend. Cindy was a lesbian back in their reality, after all.

"On the phone?" Mac frowned. "I haven't talked to you for three days."

Max decided it was an opportune time to make herself scarce until she could get Cynthia alone but the moment she moved, Cynthia caught sight of her.

"Hello, Alex," Cynthia said stiffly. Max nodded tentatively as Mac shot her a pleading glance but she had no idea what he was pleading with her to do, so it was wasted on her. She settled for staying where she was and playing it cool.

"Hey, Cynthia. How's it going?"

"Fine," Cynthia replied flatly, her dark gaze practically boring a hole in Max's skull. The X5 female tried not to squirm – she'd never been on the receiving end of such a look from Cindy before. It didn't help that she didn't know why she was being looked at like that – as if she were something 'Cynthia' had stepped in.

It took a few moments before Max felt a twinge of recognition and she struggled not to make a face as she finally placed where she'd seen it – Logan got that look on his face whenever he talked about, talked to or encountered Alec.

No, surely not. Logan wasn't like that and this world was not identical to hers.

Right?

Max cleared her throat softly. "Uh… Cynthia, once you're done with Mac, I was kinda hopin' I could ask you a favor."

That look flashed across the black woman's face again but she grudgingly nodded.

"What is it?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest. "You might as well tell me now. I'm not staying long."

"Just a name and address," Max told her. "Quinn Mallory."

"I'll work on it."

"Thanks. I'll, uh, swing by your crib later," Max mumbled and retreated, walking out of Jam Pony in a kind of horrified, overwhelmed daze, leaving Mac and Cynthia to hash out their problems on their own.

"Max? Everything okay?" Alec asked, his fingers closing around her arm as she stepped into the alley. She looked up into his face – his blessedly familiar face with its familiar expressions and familiar smart-ass manner temporarily softened by concern – and swallowed.

"We've seen some weird shit since we stepped through that wormhole," Max told him, "but that is _so_ screwed up on _so_ many levels."

"What's wrong? What happened in there?" he asked.

"You're me," she said, still trying to wrap her head around it, "and I'm you," she continued. "And Sketchy's Normal and Logan's Cindy."

Alec's expression was priceless. He was looking at her as if she'd completely flipped her lid.

"Run that by me again," he urged her, "_slowly_."

"I didn't stutter, idiot," Max replied, a hint of snippiness creeping into her manner. "I met you – Mac – in there and he called me Alex. Get it?"

"So you mean that you're _literally_ in my skin in this reality? And I'm in yours?"

"Mm hm," Max nodded, wrinkling her nose at the prospect. "I think so."

"That's kinda kinky," he joked only to receive a hard slap on the bicep. "Ow! Stop hitting me!"

"Stop making stupid smart-ass remarks," Max replied sharply. He rubbed at his arm, scowling at her in irritation as the sting faded.

"Fine. Stop being a bitch and we'll call it even," Alec shot back. Max glared at him.

"Cynthia showed up. I asked her to find Mallory."

"Yeah, I saw her walk in."

"She was looking at me like she wanted me to disappear."

"Imagine that," Alec deadpanned, avoiding her eyes. Max's brow furrowed slightly.

"Does Logan do that?" she asked. "Look at you like that, I mean."

Alec shrugged. "I've had worse," he replied simply.

Max pursed her lips. She didn't like the sound of that.

"I need a drink."

"It's not even noon."

"Shut up."

* * *

"I was thinking… from what we've seen in this reality, most people only seem to be a few steps removed from the lives they had back home," Alec mused. "So if Cindy finds Mallory in this world, it shouldn't be too hard to find the astrophysicist who built the PUT in this universe in his circle of friends or something."

He and Max had taken refuge at Crash, which was scarcely populated during the day, and were hashing out some semblance of a plan over a pitcher of beer.

Max already had a plan. Get home, get in the shower. That was it in a nutshell. She'd taken advantage of the lull and wiped herself down as much as she could in the bathroom but it hadn't really done much. She still felt disgusting.

"Makes sense, I guess," Max sighed, "but I don't think anyone's going to put up their hand and confess to building something that sounds crazy."

"Sounds like Manticore but we won't know until we try," Alec pointed out. "Come on, at least it'll kill some time. I thought you'd be more enthusiastic about this. You know, charging in, all pistons firing?"

"Yeah, I am, it's just…"

"Just what?" he prompted her.

"I was just thinking about being at Jam Pony today," she admitted reluctantly. "Seeing everyone there but seeing everyone different… You wouldn't believe what Logan was wearing."

Alec perked up at that tidbit of information. "You said he switched with Cindy, right?"

"Right."

"This I gotta hear," he smirked and Max almost smiled.

"Think gay Goth," Max told him and Alec chuckled. "Long hair, mesh shirt…" Alec laughed harder as he pictured what she was describing, the sound so rare that she grinned in return with uncharacteristic ease. "Dog collar…" Max continued, finding laughter bubbling up inside her at the memory. "He looked ridiculous."

"Kinda makes me appreciate the old Logan," Alec said ruefully. "At least with him I didn't have to worry about being hit on."

Max snickered and swallowed a mouthful of beer.

"Well, if our theory is right, you two are firmly in the friends zone in this reality."

"Ahhh… but I'm not Mac, am I?" he reminded her, waggling his brows. "Here I'm Alex, so a male me might be a different kettle of fish."

"A male you is a pain in the ass. Relax, Logie is _not_ going to hit on you," Max told him firmly.

"Logie?" Alec let out a bark of laughter. "Ha! I had that in my phone. I knew it!"

"Don't get smug. There's probably a world out there where you have a stupid nickname too."

"Like Siren?"

"Don't even mention that… that…"

"Seductress? Temptress? Flasher of flesh?"

"I'm going to hit you if you keep going."

"I get a warning now? How considerate of you."

"Enjoy it while you can."

"Yes, ma'am," Alec replied smartly, eyes twinkling with humor.

"Besides, it's not like you can talk. Castor wasn't big on clothing either."

"But why hide perfection?" Alec asked mischievously. "Fangs aside, that world wasn't all bad."

"You would say that when Jondy was sucking your face off."

"Hey, rumor has it that Castor wasn't exactly ignoring you."

"Where did you hear that?" Max demanded in a hushed tone, rounding on him with outraged brown eyes.

"Super-hearing, remember?"

"No X5's hearing is that good."

"You don't want the truth, Max, believe me," he cautioned her.

"What is it?" Max growled, scowling at him as his grin turned lascivious. "_What?_"

"I smelled him on you."

"_Ew!_"

Alec ducked as Max swung at him.

"Take that back!"

"You asked me!"

"I didn't ask you to smell me!"

"It's not like it was intentional. We're both kind of on the nose."

"You try not having a bath for three days and see how you smell!"

"Are you forgetting that I've been on this crazy trip with you the whole time? When have I had a chance to shower? And I'm the one who got branded with cow manure, remember?"

"Ass," Max grumbled, flopping back down into her seat.

"I knew you had a thing for that part of my anatomy."

Max made a face and thumped him on the chest.

"So when do you want to drop in on Cindy and see if she came up with anything?" Alec asked, diplomatically changing the subject.

"Give it another hour," she replied grimly.

"Or three, if she and Mac are really like you and Logan. They're probably still looking deeply into each other's eyes, trying to figure out why she thinks she talked to him this morning –"

"What would you know about it?"

"Max, you look at Logan like the sun rises and sets on his stubble."

Max gave him a withering look. "I do _not_ look at Logan like that."

Alec coughed into his fist, uttering something that sounded suspiciously like 'bullshit'.

"That's mature," Max bit out sarcastically.

"But true nonetheless."

"Bite me."

"Maybe later… Crap."

"What?"

"Hide!" Alec barked softly, yanking Max off the stool so quickly she almost spilled her beer.

"What is it?" she hissed, pulling out of his grasp so she could look back. Max grimaced at what she saw. A bunch of Jam Pony messengers had turned up for their allotted lunch hour and sure enough, Mac was among them.

"Nice save," Max said without much thought as they took shelter behind a wall.

"I have my moments," Alec shrugged, peering around the barrier to catch his first glimpse of the man wearing his face in this world. His lip curled slightly. "Is he as uptight as he looks?"

"Hey!"

"Gotcha. You in my skin. Of course he's that uptight."

Max elbowed him in the ribs in retaliation. "One more comment like that and I'll –"

"What? Bitch me to death? You'd miss me."

Max gave an inelegant snort, falling back on her trademark sarcasm. "Right. I'd miss the snarkage and stupid jokes and the flirting with anything female –"

"And my ass, Max. Don't forget that."

"You need to shut up."

"You're just saying that 'cause I'm right."

"For the last time, Alec; I don't care about your ass."

"Makes me wonder why you kept on saving it."

"You come in handy from time to time."

"Keep telling yourself that, Max," Alec said, winking at her.

"So are you two okay, boo?" Logan asked, his voice carrying to twin sets of transgenic ears. "Logie thought he sensed a bit of tension 'tween y'all."

"Oh, that's priceless," Alec snickered softly. "Look at what he's wearing –"

"Sshh," was Max's only response.

Mac grimaced. "I don't know. I told her I needed some space but I don't think she heard me."

"Well, you did kinda drop the whole 'break-up' thing on her outta nowhere, sugah," Logan pointed out. "That girl's been holdin' on so hard for so long you gotta know it ain't gonna be easy."

"Yeah, I know," Mac said, his face falling. "I just can't risk it. We've had too many close calls with this virus already. I don't want her to die because of me."

"Cynthia was takin' risks on her own years before you came into the picture," Logan reminded him. "Remember her getting her ass shot up on tee-vee?"

"It's not worth the risk."

"She don't seem to agree," Logan replied.

"Being with me isn't worth her life. That is _not_ a fair trade," Mac argued.

"This is so familiar it's scary," Alec muttered.

"I don't sound like that," Max said defensively.

"Twenty bucks says the next words out of his mouth are something about his life sucking," Alec challenged her.

"This bitch'll work itself out," Logan assured him. "You and Cynthia are gonna be aiight."

"God, could this suck any harder?" Mac groaned.

"Pay up," Alec whispered as Max fumed. "The day you and Logan get your act together is the day I hand myself over to White."

"Oh, that'd be reason enough for me," Max replied with saccharine sweetness a second before her jaw dropped and she scrunched her face up. "Ugh…"

"What?" Alec asked, looking up again. A second later he chuckled.

Alex had arrived in all her glory. Though to be fair, it wasn't nearly as bad as Max had imagined.

Max was greeted with dark blue jeans so low they bordered on indecent, a black button-up top that showed off a considerable amount of midriff and dark hair that kinked and curled around her shoulder-blades. This version of X5-452 was clearly very aware of her appeal and not afraid to show it.

No wonder Mac had thought something was up.

Hips swaying, Alex approached the counter and leaned across it, smiling at the bartender in a manner Max recognized all too well. Never in a thousand years would she have thought she'd see that expression on her face. It was annoying enough on Alec.

On her, it was downright unnerving.

"Taking an extended lunch break, boys?" Alex asked as she seated herself with the other messengers, a slightly husky quality in her voice that Max had never heard before… except when she was in heat. A hand unconsciously came up to rub at her throat. Did Alex talk like that all the time? Or were the bar patrons just lucky?

"Hey, Alex," Normal greeted her, his face lighting up with a knowing look. "Feeling better?"

"Any reason I should be?" Alex asked, looking a little perplexed by the question.

"Yeah, I heard you telling Calvin you weren't feeling so great," Herbal informed her, his diction making Max's eyebrows shoot up in surprise. She was so used to his virtually unintelligible sentences that it was strange to hear him speak like that.

"Have you been into Sky's ganja again?" Alex inquired, giving him a quizzical look.

Alec glanced at Max. "Are you getting me in trouble, Maxie?"

"No more than you got Mac in trouble," Max replied, thinking back to the stilted conversation between him and Cynthia she'd witnessed at Jam Pony after Alec had cut short the video conference in Terminal City earlier.

"At least this one has all her clothes on," Alec said, nudging Max companionably.

"It could be worse, I guess," Max agreed quietly, still wrinkling her nose at the sight.

"So are you done skiving off work for the day?" Mac asked with a healthy degree of sarcasm.

"Mac, you need to relax," Alex told him with a maddening smirk, her voice just as throaty and come-hither as it had been with the boys. "Learn to enjoy life. Have you tried prune juice? I hear it works miracles."

"Can we talk?" Mac asked tautly, clenching his jaw and nodding in the direction of the back room.

"Lead the way, pal," Alex replied, acquiescing gracefully.

Max and Alec scrambled into retreat, endeavoring to remain out of sight as their doubles approached their hiding place.

"Just wanted to make sure we're still good for tonight," Mac informed her and Max cringed, a twinge of guilt washing over her as she realized her twin was about to take the heat for a conversation she hadn't been present for.

"Tonight?" Alex gave him a quizzical look. "Have we got a date I don't know about, Mac?"

"The job, remember?" Mac retorted, staring at her as if she were a sandwich short of a picnic. "Fifteen grand each?"

"Did Manticore shake somethin' loose in that brain of yours?" Alex asked, her hands coming to rest on her hips. "I don't know what you're talking about but I like the sound of fifteen grand. What's the deal?"

"I told you this morning," Mac huffed impatiently. "Did you hit your head or something? I walked up to you at work a few hours ago and asked you if you wanted in on the heist. You agreed to meet me at eleven behind the Hudson."

"And when exactly was this?" Alex asked, folding her arms as she watched him expectantly.

"About ten," Mac replied with a huff. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

But Alex's expression had colored with concern. "Mac, I was doing pick-ups in Sector Three at ten. You can check with Calvin if you don't believe me."

Mac snorted. "You actually did some work? Pull the other one."

"No, Mac, I'm serious," she told him, frowning. "If it wasn't me, who the hell were you talking to?"

Mac finally seemed to be taking her seriously. Or at least he was starting to. His brow furrowed as he turned the issue over in his mind.

"I did think it was weird for you to be dressed like that," he mused. Alex gave him a strange look.

"Dressed like what?" she asked curiously.

"Well, you were all – or she was all – covered up," he replied, glancing pointedly at her rather revealing mode of dress. "And her hair was straight."

"I haven't worn my hair straight since Manticore burned down," Alex reminded him, shaking her head. "You know that."

"They only made one clone of you, right?" Mac asked, his teeth worrying his lower lip. His hazel eyes were shadowed.

"As far as I know," Alex agreed.

"We've gotta say something," Max whispered, glancing back over her shoulder at her companion.

"Are you crazy? No," Alec replied in a hushed tone, shaking his head emphatically. "Don't you think we have enough problems?"

Max and Alec looked back at their doubles and froze.

Both Mac and Alex were staring directly at their hiding place with identical expressions of consternation on their faces. It might have been funny under different circumstances.

_Oh shit_, Max realized belatedly, mentally kicking herself for being so stupid. _Transgenic ears. They heard us_.

Mac and Alex exchanged a silent, speaking look and in an instant their entire demeanor shifted into that of a soldier. It was subtle, the change so fluid that only a trained eye could catch it.

"We need their help," Max insisted through gritted teeth, painfully aware that the two X5s were listening to every word they said.

"Are you forgetting what the other versions of us were like?" Alec felt compelled to ask. "Not exactly a stellar track record, Maxie."

She just gave him the stubborn look that he was becomingly all-too-familiar with – the one that meant he wasn't going to win the argument, no matter what he said or did.

"Screw it," Max muttered, glancing back only to find that both Mac and Alex were gone.

"Shit," Alec swore, turning just as a fist connected with his face and darkness descended.

* * *

_Keep your eye on the prize, Alec_, he berated himself, straining against the handcuffs that held him. _Never take your attention off your enemy_. _The first fucking commandment of combat. Sheesh_.

Alec had come to and found himself tied to a chair, bound securely at both hand and foot. Max sat a few feet away in an identical set-up, seething as she tried to free herself.

_How much time did we lose?_ he found himself wondering. _Crap_…

"Cute toy," a throaty, feminine voice said and Alex emerged from the shadows, the PUT device in one hand.

"Give it back," Max snapped, brown eyes blazing.

Alex quirked an eyebrow at Max and glanced over the top of the two of them. Alec and Mac both followed her gaze and found Mac leaning against the back wall, watching the proceedings with narrowed eyes.

"See? I knew they couldn't make two of us with looks _and_ personality," Alex smirked and held up the notebook she'd appropriated from Alec. "Now do you two wanna tell me where you got this?"

"What is that?" Max asked, glancing from the article in question to Alec.

"Just found it lying around," Alec replied in a non-committal tone. After all, it wasn't technically a fib.

"Really? This thing's pretty elaborate… not to mention the content is pretty damn familiar," Alex continued.

"It's gibberish," Alec tried again.

"Oh, we both know that's a _big_ lie," Alex chuckled though her dark eyes remained cold as ice. "Imagine my surprise at finding someone with a face like yours carrying this around."

Alec didn't voice the string of curses running through his mind. He just watched Alex as she flipped through the notebook, trying to ignore the anger he could sense rolling off Max in waves.

Mac circled around them from behind, staring at Max.

"You're not Bel," he stated quietly.

"What?" Max blurted out, unconsciously mimicking Alec's reaction to a similar question the day he'd walked into her cell at Manticore. Alex came to stand beside Mac, watching their female captive with a closed, wary expression.

"You know, whoever sent you two got the barcodes wrong," Alex informed them. "I'm 494. He's 452." She shook her head in disgust. "Amateurs."

"No-one sent us," Alec replied honestly. "We're just passing through."

"Oh," Mac said with false serenity. "You just happened to be passing through Terminal City with a book full of runes and our barcodes on the backs of your necks."

"Not to mention Jam Pony," Alex chimed in.

"And now Crash," Mac continued. "Funny how you keep showing up in places we tend to hang out in. I know Lydecker didn't send you. Snake boy knows our numbers, so who the hell are you working for?"

"We aren't working for anybody," Max told them, echoing Alec's earlier sentiment. "We just got curious. That's all. Just let us go and we'll get out of your way."

"I say we let 'em rot," Alex suggested, glancing at her companion.

"I don't really want to stink up the place," Mac countered. "Haven't you two heard of something called a bath?"

"Gee. No," Max replied, giving Mac a withering look. "I _like_ smelling like a dumpster."

"I'm gonna give Josh the heads up," Alex decided. "You got this?"

"Of course I've got this," Mac replied as if it should have been obvious.

"All right," Alex nodded as she headed towards the stairs. "Cavalry, here I come."

"That's not necessary," Alec told them.

"Oh really?" Alec asked with a hint of humor. "Cause from where I'm standing, I'm looking at two doppelgangers who showed up out of nowhere and I have no idea if there are more out there or how much damage they've already done behind our backs."

"We're not from here," Max interjected, picking up the argument.

"No, really?" Mac scoffed, shaking his head as Alex started moving again.

"Why are you so interested in that book?" Alec called after them and resisted the urge to smile in satisfaction when it had the desired effect. She did yet another about face, her exotic features schooled into neutrality.

"Why are you?" she asked, turning the question back on him. "It's not exactly the standard tourist's brochure, now is it?"

_Oh, what the hell?_ Alec thought, knowing they weren't going to get anywhere if they stayed on their current course. "Runes, right? One of you has them."

"Alec!" Max hissed but he ignored her as Alex narrowed her eyes and glanced at Mac, who wore an identical expression of suspicion.

"Alec?" Mac echoed, his hazel eyes sliding from his twin to Max and back again. "I think you're off by a consonant… not to mention a few other vital body parts."

"Nice to know you're paying attention," Alex purred teasingly and Mac rolled his eyes skyward for a moment.

"Who the hell are you?" Mac demanded, towering over the pair of them. "Where did you come from?"

Alec actually laughed. "You wouldn't believe us if we told you."

"We grew up as part of a secret military experiment in genetic engineering," Mac reminded them. "Try us."

"We're you… from another universe," Max grudgingly admitted, her shoulders slumping in defeat. "An alternate reality."

"You're right; I don't believe you," Alex chimed in.

"You're holding the control," Alec informed her, looking at the device she held in her hand.

"What? This egg-timer of yours?" Alex scoffed.

"It opens a wormhole," Max concurred, suddenly sounding tired. "That thing counts down until the next one opens."

"You couldn't think of something even halfway plausible?" Mac asked in disgust. "Are you sure you're X5?"

"Then how do you explain us?" Alec said, raising the point again since it had seemed to get their attention quite effectively the first time. "You studied physics. Do the math."

Mac's eyes narrowed as he glanced at Alex, whose mouth was twisting up as she made a face.

"They twinned us. They didn't triplet us," Max pointed out.

"Sandeman could have made back-ups," Mac said stiffly.

"With the same barcode but a completely different gender and model type?" Alec challenged him. "The twins _were_ the back-ups. Think about it."

"There _is_ a theory about multiple universes…" Alex reluctantly admitted before glancing back at their prisoners. "All right, how about we try asking you something only me or him would know?" She gestured at Mac.

"Shoot," Alec agreed, meeting Alex's eyes without hesitation.

"What did I say to him the first time we met?" she asked, watching him carefully. Alec just grinned – that was an easy one if things were as similar as he believed.

"You told him he spent ten years in filth and degradation," he replied easily. "_'I could catch something_.'"

"Lucky guess," Mac grumbled stubbornly.

"Fine. You try," Alex suggested, waving him off. Mac's gaze slid from Max to Alec and back again as he considered his next move.

"What's the High Place?" Mac asked after a moment's thought.

"The Space Needle," Max replied firmly.

"How did I meet Logan?"

It took Max a moment to remember to substitute Logan for Original Cindy in her mind.

"Bar fight on the Pacific Coast Highway," she informed them. "Place called the Monkey House."

Mac blinked, clearly a little unsettled that she'd been right on the money both times. "You're up," he told Alex.

"What did he call the kids that we helped get away from White just after Manticore went down?"

"Zero, Bullet and Bugler," Alec answered.

"You missed one," Mac pointed out.

"No, you didn't name Ralph," Alec corrected him, looking over at Alex. "You did."

"Okay, something harder…" Alex mused as she started to pace, determined to catch them out.

Ten minutes later, the native X5s has delved into more personal territory out of sheer desperation.

"The night I broke her out of prison after they arrested her ass for murdering Tina Ryan, what did I tell her about?" Mac asked, his expression stony.

_Tina Ryan?_ Max's eyes widened for a second before it clicked. _Timothy Ryan…_

_ Ben_.

Yet Alec remained silent. He didn't answer. Instead, he just looked at her and she realized he wasn't going to say anything. Unless she was willing to broach the subject, he wouldn't talk about it.

He was keeping her secret – one she'd trusted him with – and in doing so was leaving both their lives in her hands.

"Your sister," she said aloud, her voice softening with compassion. "That's why you said I wasn't Bel before. She was killing people…wasn't she?"

Alex swallowed, uncertainty sweeping across her features. "Mac?"

"You didn't tell anyone?"

Alex open her mouth to reply and promptly snapped it shut, stung. "No," she ground out at last. "_Never_."

Mac's expression flickered as he gazed at Alex's face but he simply nodded, acknowledging that he believed her. "Well… that's uh… I don't even know any more."

"Renfro can't clone memories, can she?" Alex wondered aloud.

"Think you could let us go now?" Alec drawled, deliberately rattling his chains.

Mac obligingly pulled the keys out of his pocket and circled around to unlock the cuffs that held them at the wrists and ankles.

"So I suppose introductions are in order," Alex surmised as they rubbed at their extremities to restore the circulation, "but you already know who we are, don't you?"

"Mac and Alex," Max replied. "We got the memo. I'm Max. He's Alec."

Alec blinked, her lips curving up into a half-smile.

"Well, isn't that cute?" she replied, shaking her head at the weird ways of the universe… erm, univers_es_.

"Adorable," Mac deadpanned, rolling his eyes.

"Okay, how about we take this somewhere a little more private?" Alex suggested, rubbing her hands together just as Max had seen Alec do on countless occasions.

"Any ideas?" Mac asked dryly.

"My apartment," she replied, ignoring the jibe. "We're a bit conspicuous out here."

"Thanks for stating the obvious," Mac drawled.

"You're welcome."

* * *

"Home, sweet home," Alec murmured as they entered Alex's apartment at gun-point.

"Will you give us the timer back now?" Max asked as the door closed behind them. Alex obligingly pulled the device out of her jacket pocket and handed it over.

"So why here? Isn't his place closer?" Alec asked.

"Here I have scotch," Alex grinned, only to be swatted across the back of the head by Mac. "Hey!"

"Grow up," Mac chastised her.

"God, ease up," Alex groused, frowning at Mac's back as she rubbed at the spot where he'd hit her. "Can't a girl have a little fun?"

"In case you didn't figure it out, this is serious, Alex."

"It's always serious with you, Mac," Alex said with a hint of exasperation. "No-one ever told you that only women are supposed to get PMS, did they?"

"Watch it," Mac warned her.

"Please, I could totally kick your ass," Alex snorted.

"If you fight like him, that's doubtful," Max said dryly, jerking her thumb in Alec's direction, who laughed sarcastically and glared at her in return.

"Some things really don't change," Alex said, tilting her head and shooting Mac a brilliant (if somewhat snarky) smile.

"Sad but true," Mac agreed sagely.

"Could you at least try to imagine the possibilities of this, Mac?" Alex asked. "Come on, you've gotta admit that this whole things sounds pretty whacked."

Max and Alec couldn't argue with that.

"So have any more runes shown up?" Alex asked and Mac reluctantly nodded. "All right, gimme a look." She grabbed hold of one of the kitchen chairs and placed it squarely in front of him.

"How long have you had them?" Max asked hesitantly and Mac grimaced as he sat down.

"They just started showing up out of nowhere a few days ago," he admitted. "Cynthia said they look like some ancient language. Minoan… Linear A, I think it was."

"The same language as you have in that notebook of yours," Alex said helpfully. "Which I'm going to copy, by the way." She tapped Mac on the shoulder and gestured for him to hurry up. Mac sighed and obediently grabbed the hem of his shirt, pulling it up and over his head to reveal a smooth expanse of lightly tanned muscle peppered with near-black markings. He let the shirt fall onto the floor beside his feet as Alex circled him and hunkered down between his knees, inspecting the mysterious tattoos that decorated his torso with tender yet efficient hands.

The marks seemed to appear in blocks – one on each of his pectorals, two more on the underside of his ribs and the final pair teasing the waistline of his jeans.

Max found herself stepping closer to get a better look, craning her neck to peer over Alex's head, her curiosity overwhelming her as Alex's fingers peeled the denim down another inch or so to examine the last line of script.

"Where'd you get that book anyway?" Max asked Alec.

"Swiped it from Siren," he told her. "She was writing down the ones she found on Castor."

"It's kinda freakin' me out," Mac admitted.

"Good old Manticore, huh?" Alex teased as her hand came to rest on his thigh, squeezing lightly and Max was surprised to realize the gentle smile she was giving Mac was genuine, meant to reassure. Mac's expression didn't change at first – not until Alex had turned her attention back to the task at hand. Only then did his eyes soften slightly in gratitude for the gesture. It was so swift Max almost missed it.

_Wow_, Max thought dismally as she realized just how reluctant Mac was to give Alex any overt indication that she wasn't the most annoying creature to ever hit the face of the planet in his estimation. _They really are just like us_.

A stray lock of Alex's wild hair fell forward, obscuring her vision, and Mac flicked it out of her face, neither of them so much as batting an eye when he did so. It was such an automatic gesture that he didn't even seem to realize he'd done it. Alex didn't even look up, too intent on studying the markings on his skin.

_Well… maybe not_ exactly _like us_.

Max shifted slightly, suddenly overwhelmed by the uncomfortable feeling that they were intruding.

Maybe it was because she absolutely refused to contemplate letting Alec inspect her skin in such a fashion. To let someone touch you inferred some kind of intimacy, whether it was simply friendship or something deeper. An old boyfriend had once told her she held everyone at arm's length and she didn't deny it for a moment. Even when she'd been able to touch Logan, she usually hadn't.

Yet here she and Alec were, watching Mac like he was the star of some kind of zoo exhibit.

"So have either of you been getting them like this?" Mac asked, his green-gold gaze roaming over her and Alec.

It was so strange to look into those eyes and see herself looking back.

Max nodded mutely.

"Mind if we take a look? See if yours are different?" he continued. Behind her on the couch, Alec's lips twitched and he guffawed under his breath, muttering something about prudes and scientific purposes.

Max made a face and gave him a half-hearted slap on the arm.

"I can check you over, Max," Alex offered serenely and chuckled when Max shot her a startled, uncertain glance. "Don't worry, you're not my type," she assured her twin with a touch of humour. "We'll do our best to preserve your modesty."

Mac made a disgusted noise. "What the hell would you know about modesty?"

"About as much as you'd know about running down the street naked," she replied blithely, grinning up at him impishly. "Wanna learn?"

Predictably, Mac rolled his eyes. "Are you done?"

"Yeah, I'm done," she replied with a long-suffering sigh. "Jeez, try to do a guy a favor…"

"By feelin' me up?" Mac snorted. "I don't need those kind of favors, thanks."

"Mac, if you don't get laid soon, you're gonna explode – figuratively _and_ literally," Alex informed him, as if it was a simple fact of life. "Even you can't keep it in your pants forever."

"Me and Cynthia are none of your business," Mac told her tautly.

"You should have thought about that before you dragged –"

"Children," Alec called in a sing-song voice, interrupting the squabbling pair with a shake of his head. "Let's keep it peaceable, okay?"

Max's lips flattened and her shoulders sagged. She had a feeling she knew what Alex had been about to say.

_You should have thought about that before you dragged me into it_.

So it seemed that she wasn't the only one who'd dragged Alec – or in this case Alex – into the middle of the emotional disaster that passed for her love life. Mac had chosen to use him – erm, her – as a buffer as well.

"Get dressed, you big idiot," Alex told him, handing him the shirt. "Who ever heard of a body-shy X5 anyway? You don't seem to have a problem flashing it when you think it'll distract some freaky telekinetic snake-girl."

"At least I had a good reason for flashing it," Mac retorted and Alex smirked mischievously.

"My reasons are more fun," she told him as he pulled his shirt over his head. Only then did she glance at Max. "So do you want me to take a look or not? I promise I don't bite."

"Yeah, come on, Max. For_ science_," Alec agreed sagely. Alex snickered and stifled a smile, gesturing to the chair Mac had just vacated.

Max steeled herself and obediently sat down, exhaling in a rush as she stripped off her jacket. She paused only when she realized Alec hadn't moved even though Mac respectfully had his back turned.

"Well?" Max huffed, glaring at him.

"Well what?" Alec echoed innocently.

Mac just gave Alec a withering look and grabbed his double by the arm, shoving him towards the bedroom and closing the door behind them.

"Ahhh," Alex sighed, clapping her hands together. "Alone at last."

Max's eyes flew up to Alex, who quirked an eyebrow at her.

"Max, seriously, you haven't got anything I'm not already _very_ familiar with," she reminded her twin.

_Okay. That is wrong on so many levels_, Max thought, wincing inwardly as she reached for the hem of her tank top and hesitated.

She was essentially undressing in front of Alec. True, this was a female Alec – and didn't that boggle the friggin' mind? – but the mannerisms, the smirk, the teasing eyes… Boobs aside, it was still him.

'Bizarre' didn't even begin to cover the situation.

Alex cleared her throat, breaking Max out of her reverie and she finally lifted the shirt over her head so that she was left wearing only her bra. Alex hunkered down again and began scrutinizing Max with the same gentle efficiency she'd demonstrated with Mac.

Gradually Max relaxed, the tension draining out of her muscles when Alex didn't offer any smart ass comments.

"Hey, listen… with this whole sliding-between-realities thing? How long has it been since you had a shower or a change of clothes?" Alex asked curiously as she touched the symbols beneath Max's ribcage.

"Days," Max grudgingly admitted, wrinkling her nose. "Why?"

"Well, I figured you might want to freshen up a bit or at least wear something clean," Alex offered, shrugging a little. "Just a thought."

"You'd do that?" Max asked, feeling a little silly for thinking Alex was a shallow as she appeared. Considering what she knew about Alec, she really should have known better.

Besides, she was dying for a hot shower.

"Sure," Alex replied and smiled as she looked up. "I might even have something in your size."

* * *

By the time Max was dressed and Alex called out to let them know the coast was clear, Mac and Alec were standing on opposite sides of the room, arms folded, one leg crossed lazily over the other.

"After you," Mac said flatly, gesturing towards the door. Alec gave him a cheeky salute and obeyed, sauntering out into the living room only for Max to dash past him.

"Help yourself to the closet. Towels are in the bathroom under the basin," Alex told her.

"Thanks," Max said with a grateful smile and practically slammed the door closed in her wake.

"You're playing house now?" Mac asked, looking a trifle exasperated with his fellow X5.

"What? So I like my prisoners hygienically clean," Alex said blithely, waving him off. "Sue me."

"You gonna serve them breakfast in bed next?" Mac snarked.

"Jealous, Mac?" Alex teased, staring at Mac with a playful expression on her face. "Relax. She doesn't strike me as the type to jump out the window naked."

"Sounds about right," Alec agreed.

"Well, since you seem to be having fun playing hostess, I guess I'll do some _actual_ work and check in with Terminal City," Mac decided, pushing away from the kitchen counter. "Don't strain yourself or anything."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Alex grinned and Mac let himself out into the corridor, muttering about idiot X5s.

They heard the shower turn on and Alex flopped down on the couch, absently reaching for the remote as Mac made his exit.

"Any requests?" she asked as she got comfortable. "He'll be a while."

Alec regarded her curiously. "For someone who just found out about other universes, you seem to be pretty cool with this… with us."

"I'm confident in my ability to detect bullshit," Alex informed him, one shoulder moving up and down in a sexy little shrug. "And since your bullshit is effectively my bullshit if what you say is true, then that kinda makes me an expert on reading you, doesn't it?"

"Nice logic."

"I thought so."

"Mac doesn't seem to share your opinion."

"Are you surprised?"

"Not so much."

"He wouldn't be half so bad if he'd just learn to take it easy."

"Preachin' to the choir here."

Alex chuckled at that and started channel surfing.

"Does your Max complain as much as Mac does? I'm curious."

"Probably. Mostly about the virus and White. It's kind of a tie."

"White's still around in your universe?"

"He's the leader of a snake cult and the reason we're in this multiversal mess, so yeah."

Alex blinked. "O…kay. Interesting."

"How so?"

"You just described Agent Renfro," Alex replied, raking a hand through her hair. "Our White ran Manticore."

The very idea of Ames White on Manticorean territory made Alec shudder. "Ever hear of anyone called Lydecker?"

Alex made a face, screwing up her mouth. "The bastard who started the breeding program? Yuck. He's dead meat and good riddance."

"Fair enough," Alec mused. "Renfro ran that in our world, paired me and Max up."

"So I guessed when you started talking about filth and degradation," Alex told him primly. "Sounds like you two got along as well as Mac and I did to begin with."

"Kicked you across the room?"

"Yep."

"Figures."

"He was never big on following orders. And there was that whole thing with him being hung up on Cynthia. That didn't really help the situation much."

"Then they whipped up the virus and ordered you to help him escape, right?"

"So he could run straight into the loving arms of his one true love," Alex sighed ruefully. "Got it in one. Who's Max's lucky star-crossed lover in your universe? I'm assuming there is one."

"Actually, it's Logan," Alec replied honestly and Alex's eyes were suddenly wide as saucers.

"_Logie_?" she echoed in sheer disbelief, her gaze shooting towards the bathroom. She jerked a thumb in Max's direction and lowered her voice. "She's got the hots for _Logie_?"

He nodded and when Alex promptly burst into gales of laughter, Alec found himself staring at the spectacle, feeling rather spectacularly cheated.

He'd never seen Max laugh like that. Sure, he'd seen her snigger and chuckle a bit but this… it was a full-bellied bout of mirth that lit up Alex's face.

It did help that she was laughing at the idea of Max and Logan together. It was a kind of balm.

"Considering what I saw him wearing earlier, I shouldn't be surprised that you find that funny," Alec decided, chuckling softly.

Alex finally settled down and curled up on the couch, the remote forgotten.

"Ever ask yourself why you stuck around in Seattle after she burned Manticore down?" she asked, her gaze taking on a far-away look. "There were safer places we could have high-tailed it to."

"Well, Max was around and there are worse people to know."

"Nicely understated," Alex said wryly, flipping her dark hair away from her face. "He's pulled my ass outta the fire a couple of times. I guess the same goes for you, huh?"

"Maybe once or twice," he shrugged, ignoring the knowing look Alex threw his way.

"It's funny how things turn out, huh?" she said thoughtfully. "World-jumping aside, you two seem to get along okay… for the most part."

"Kinda hard to avoid her when we're stuck in this mess."

"We seem to have a nose for those."

"What, messes?"

"It's kind of our specialty, don't you think?" she said with bit of dramatic flair. "Cage fighting?"

"Check. Steelheads?"

"Check. Merman?"

"Mer_maid_ but same thing, I guess," Alec told her. "Shot in the shoulder?"

"Which time?" Alex snickered and Alec grinned.

"Touché."

"The Volkovich job?"

"Ahhh… Kezmekistan or whatever," Alec mused, his lips curving up into a feline smile. "Lola…"

"Lonny," Alex amended, suddenly looking sad. "Me and Bea had a ball on that mission."

Alec's face fell as he realized who she was talking about – of course Biggs had had an equivalent in this world. His chest constricted at the memory of seeing his friend strung up by an anti-transgenic lynch mob.

"The Berrisford mission?" Alec's voice was perfectly casual. Anyone else would have thought he was discussing the weather but Alex looked up at him sharply.

"Yeah," she said flatly. "The Berrisford mission."

"Her name was Rachel," Alec told her.

"So it was a girl in your reality," Alex mused. "His name was Ryan."

Silence descended and slowly seemed to swallow up the room until Alec's curiosity got the better of him.

"Why are you telling me all of this?" Alec asked inquisitively and Alex grinned up at him.

"Well, I'm kind of talking to myself, aren't I?" she replied ruefully. "Best therapy in two dimensions."

That got a chuckle out of Alec and he smiled back at her.

"Hey, Alex?"

"Yeah?"

"What's it like to be a girl?"

She started laughing again.

Damn. He had to get Max to work on that.

* * *

Max stood under the spray of steaming water and groaned in sheer ecstasy. A shower had never been so welcome. In three days she felt like she'd accumulated three weeks worth of grime. Soap and shampoo were smiled upon as she lathered her skin and hair and tuned out the rest of the world, content for her existence to spiral down to this one cubicle and its hot and cold taps. She didn't know how long she was in there and she didn't want to know.

Laughter filtered through the walls – Alex's laughter. Hers by extension, she supposed, and it occurred to her that she hardly ever laughed any more.

As tempting as it was, she resisted the urge to eavesdrop on their conversation. Her head was spinning as it was without listening in to some whacked-out tête-à-tête between Alec and his personality double.

She summoned up the image of Logan, holding it in her mind as something to focus on. She had to get back to him. He must be going out of his mind by now. She and Alec had been missing for far too long. Cindy, Sketchy, hell, even Normal would be getting worried. Of course, he would have panicked over Alec's absence on day one but that was neither here nor there.

She hated what was happening. She hated being powerless. They had no control over where they landed next. They'd lucked out this time; their doubles had given them a grudging 'you-might-be-crazy-but-we'll-let-it-slide' kind of benefit of the doubt but the next world could easily be something out of their worst nightmares.

With these gloomy thoughts, Max turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, snatching up the towel. She dried herself swiftly and dressed in the clothes she'd appropriated from Alex – the most modest ones Max had been able to find. It had been a bit of an eye-opener to look through her wardrobe.

It had occurred to her that Alec would probably tease her mercilessly about Alex's decidedly skimpy fashion sense later on down the line but she wasn't about to complain about the tank top and jeans she'd scavenged.

"Shower's free," Max announced, emerging as she towelled her hair dry.

"Hell yeah," Alec enthused as he got up, whistling cheerfully as he entered the bathroom and shut the door.

"At least he and Mac have _something_ in common," Alex said airily. "They're prisses about being clean."

"And you're not?" Max asked, quirking an eyebrow at her Alec-esque double.

"Nope," Alex replied with a cheeky grin. "Dirty girls have more fun."

* * *

Hours later, Max was still wide awake, staring out of the windows of Alex's home. Unlike Alex, Mac had remained quiet after he'd gotten back from visiting TC and Cynthia. The hacker hadn't been able to find any listings for a Quinn Mallory and Mac was now gazing out at the rain that was beating against the glass.

Both Alec and his counterpart had crashed out; she in her bed, he on the couch. That left Max and Mac milling around the darkened apartment.

Max was bored out of her mind.

"I need to clear my head," Mac said, abruptly breaking the silence. He pushed away from the kitchen counter he'd been leaning on and shrugged into his jacket.

"I hear that," Max murmured, thinking longingly of her Ninja, abandoned in her home world. Her gaze wandered to Alec, who slumbered on quietly.

Mac paused beside the door, his hand on the knob, and glanced back at Max.

"Did you want to come?" he asked at last and Max's eyes snapped up in surprise. "We'll be back in plenty of time," he promised.

"Sure," she replied quickly, not about to turn down the opportunity even if it was pouring.

* * *

"You're going to chafe," Mac cautioned her as they got off the motorcycle at the base of the Space Needle.

"I can live with it if you can," Max told him, heedless of the rain. "I needed that."

They ascended the structure quickly, finally stopping in what had been the restaurant once upon a time. Water ran off both of them in rivulets, leaving wet trails behind them as they approached the windows.

They stood in silence what seemed like an eternity, just staring at the hazy vista spread out before them. Max felt the tension drain out of her, the familiar surroundings soothing her.

At least some things remained the same among all the craziness.

"Thanks."

It wasn't much but Max saw Mac incline his head, acknowledging the fact that she'd said it.

"You're welcome."

"Come here often?"

"I think we both know the answer to that one."

"Right."

Max watched his profile as he continued stare out at the rain. It was so strange to look at that face and know it wasn't Alec behind it… or Ben. It was _her_ looking out at the world with hazel eyes.

"Do you have any idea what the runes mean?" she finally asked and Mac shook his head.

"I wish," he said, scowling. "All I know is that I'm damn sick of snake people and magic tattoos. Cynthia's working on a translation with the runes Alex has found so far but nothing yet."

"So Cynthia hasn't seen them up close?"

"That would require me and her in the same room and me without some or all of my clothes on," Mac told her. "Considering the fact that my skin is toxic where she's concerned, I'm steering clear."

"Trust Manticore to turn us into a biohazard freak-show," Max grunted.

"Yeah, I guess," Mac agreed darkly. "White was always a sadistic son of a bitch."

Thinking back to Renfro, Max wasn't about to argue with that statement.

"Did he take a bullet for you?" she asked curiously and he nodded.

"Which is typical of my life, seeing as how it looks like he was the only solid lead to Sandeman," he replied sardonically. "We haven't been able to find him yet. Cynthia's still trying but… I just don't understand what he could have put into my DNA that's so important he had to brand me with the information in a language I can't understand."

"Tell me about it," Max grumbled. "The barcode was bad enough. At least that only shows up in the one place and nowhere embarrassing."

Max grimaced. "Is that a warning?"

"I won't say no," he sighed, a hint of discomfiture in his stance.

"Great," Max declared sarcastically. "Runes where the sun don't shine. That's just what I need."

"This is so depressing."

"Don't remind me."

"Feel like changing the subject?"

"Feel free."

"Is Logan really straight in your world?" he asked and Max grinned fondly.

"Yep," she nodded. "Where I come from it's Cindy who's same-sex oriented."

"That's pretty whack," he said, almost smiling at the thought.

"No more than Logan with long hair."

Mac really started laughing then. It was quick, a ripple of sound, and faded in what felt like a heartbeat but it was still a laugh. Then his expression changed, vulnerability flitting across his features.

"Did you break up with him in your world?"

Max's breath hitched and she nodded.

"Did you lie to him to do it?"

Max felt her cheeks start to burn as she nodded again.

"I let him think that me and Alec were together."

"Alex was so angry at me when she found out," Mac admitted. "She asked me why I had to drag her into it, make her the bad guy. I guess I hadn't really thought about it until she called me on it."

"Alec doesn't know yet," Max said haltingly. "We got sucked into this before I had a chance."

"Do you think we did the right thing?" Mac wondered. "Pushing them away like that?"

"It's like I told Joshua once," Max replied sadly, pushing her hair away from her face. "When you love someone, you have to do what's best for them –"

"Even if it hurts," Mac finished for her. "I remember. Except I was talking to Mole."

"I can't get used to that."

"There lies the beauty of this being my world. Everything makes sense to me even if it doesn't to you."

"Everything makes sense?" Max shook her head. "I wish. Maybe you can explain to me how our lives suck so hard in the love department then."

"Okay, so I'm still working on that one," he conceded. "Let me guess. Manticore outfitted you with the designer virus, too?"

"Uhuh," Max nodded miserably. "One wrong move and my boyfriend keels over. Not exactly the stuff dreams are made of."

"You ever wonder if it's worth it?" Mac said quietly, staring sightlessly at the floor of the Needle.

"All the time," Max whispered. "Every time I see him. Is that horrible?"

"No," Mac replied softly, meeting her brown eyes with his hazel ones. "It's human."

"Alec said we don't belong with them," Max confided hesitantly.

"Alex said the same thing. I'm starting to think she's right."

"How did that happen?" Max asked with a degree of asperity, as if the force that had caused it had better show up and explain itself _now_. "How did Alec go from being a pain in my ass to being right some of the time?"

"Don't have an answer for that one, Max," Mac told her. "Wish I did."

"It's not fair. He's supposed to be a screw up."

Mac's lips lifted in a ghost of a smile.

"Listen… don't tell Alex I said this but… she's all right. It's funny when you think about it but she's one of my best friends."

"Do you hit all your friends up the side of the head?" Max asked, only realizing how hypocritical it sounded once the words were out of her mouth. Mac seemed aware of it as well; his expression became pensive.

"Maybe we should both stop."

Neither of them could think of much to say after that.

"Come on," Mac eventually sighed, getting smoothly to his feet. "We'd better get going. It's not long until dawn."

* * *

"Morning, sunshine," Alex greeted them with false cheer as they walked in the door. "Did you have fun? Cause Alec and I had a ball wondering where the hell you were with an hour left on the clock."

Max's eyes went wide as she realized she'd left without any explanation and Alec stepped out of the bathroom, his handsome face devoid of its usual charisma. He walked straight over to the kitchenette where Alex shoved a slice of toast into his mouth.

"You didn't think I was going to leave you here, did you?" Max asked, aiming for levity but Alec shot her a look that left her in little doubt that the thought had crossed his mind.

_Oops_, she thought lamely. _Okay, my bad_. "Sorry."

"You make it sound like you two were worried," Mac pointed out, snatching the piece of toast that she tossed him out of mid-air.

"No, it's just that if Max was with you when the timer went off, there'd be two of me in this universe," she corrected him, smirking slightly. "Too much of a good thing, you know?"

"You're unbelievable," Mac huffed.

"Aw, you noticed."

Max peeked over at Alec, whose lips twitched as he listened to the bantering pair. His gaze slid over to hers and held it for a long moment, searching for… something… in her expression. She didn't know whether he found it or not but he seemed to shrug it off.

"You about ready to go?" he asked.

"Sure," Max nodded. "Thanks for the clothes, Alex."

"No problem," Alex replied. "Anything for a friend… or a freaky interdimensional personality double of a friend."

"Where do you come up with this stuff?" Mac asked, staring at her as if she was crazy.

"Natural talent," Alex grinned.

"My ass."

Max and Alec wordlessly retreated; she with a mug of coffee, he with his slice of toast.

About an hour later, the quartet was standing on top of Alex's apartment building.

"Moment of truth, huh?" Alex asked. "So when's the big finish?"

"Fifty-six seconds," Max informed her.

"And here's hopin' the grass is greener," Alec said, shaking his head doubtfully all the same.

"And here I was thinkin' _we_ were greener," Alex teased, nudging Mac, who smiled a little.

"Hey, don't get me wrong; you two were a high point," Alec assured them.

"We're just not so hot on running around on worlds where they hunt our asses down for food is all," Max said helpfully.

"Or for other reasons," Alec added wryly, thinking back to the reality where he'd been the only guy in existence.

"I see your point," Mac replied with a hint of humor.

"Well, as fun as this was, I'm gonna be kinda glad when things are back to normal," Alex sighed.

"Normal is relative," Mac said with a shake of his head.

"Amen to that," Alec said with a nod. "Speaking of…"

"You two be careful," Mac cautioned them, meeting Max's eyes. "I hope you get home."

"Thanks," Max said softly, smiling faintly. "Watch your backs, okay?"

"I've got him covered, Max," Alex assured her. "Just keep your heads down and ride it out. I've got a feeling you'll land on your feet."

"Easier said than done but we'll try," Alec said ruefully. "There's something to be said for all that feline DNA, right Maxie?"

_Don't call me Maxie!_

It was on the tip of her tongue to say it and Max raised her hand to swat him… and stopped short, the image of Mac cuffing Alex in a similar fashion flashing through her mind.

"Let's go," she said instead as the wormhole opened in a swirl of colour. Alec flashed a grin at their doubles and they stepped inside.

TBC...

* * *

**A/N:** Comments are always appreciated!


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